High School

Why do we go to high school? Sure, we learn a lot, and that's nice and all, but we could learn by staying home and reading. With resources like Khan Academy and Youtube and AP study books, we can learn entire subjects in a quarter of the time it would take in school. So that's not the reason. How about the social aspects of high school? Making friends in classes, having fun with them outside of classes. Certainly that's an important part of a high school experience, but I wouldn't say it's the reason for high school.

We go to high school to prepare us. For some of us, that means being prepared to immediately enter into the workforce, using life skills taught in high school every day. For others of us, that means being prepared for college, a very different experience.  Personally, I think that high school has done a fairly good job of preparing me for college. I've taken challenging classes and have had to overcome many things that I will undoubtedly face again in college. So, overall, I'd say high school did a good job of preparing us.

But is that really the end goal of all of this? High school leads to college leads to graduate school leads to doctoral studies leads to career (or some variation on that). It's all a progression, with high school being one of the earliest steps, and yet one of the last for some of us. If high school is just another stepping stone, what's the real point of it?

For me, high school is important, painfully obviously so, and yet, I find the reasoning behind this difficult to put into a thesis statement.

High school is important because of the first day of school, when I knew 5 kids at Dunbar, and because of the 3rd day of school, when I knew 50.

High school is important because of Mr. Reed, who not only inspired me to love a subject which I knew nothing about, but taught me that learning can be both productive and fun.

High school is important because of the last day of freshman year, when I realized that I had survived a year of MSTC and could survive another 3.

High school is important because of the summer between my 9th and 10th grades, when one of my best friends was busted for drugs at summer camp and tried to kill himself.

High school is important because of blushing and stammering every time I tried talking to my crush.

High school is important because of 10th grade AP Statistics, when Mr. Kennedy told me that I can't fail at something that I love and work hard at.

High school is important because of the last day of sophomore year, when I realized with a combination of ecstasy and trepidation that I was halfway through.

High school is important because of the summer between my Sophomore and Junior year, when I fell in love for the first time.

High school is important because of staying up crying almost every night Junior year, not sure if I would be able to walk past the kitchen knife again without picking it up, and because of waking up every day to a group of supportive friends who assured me, knowingly or not, that I could.

High school is important because of Mrs. Smith teaching me that an email gone unread is on the same level as assault and battery.

High school is important because of going to the park with my friends and throwing around a frisbee after AP testing.

High school is important because of the first day of senior year, when I realized that I was almost done with my last years as a kid.

High school is important because of Mr. Mullins, who taught me to never be satisfied with a meaning gleaned from skimming the surface, and that true meaning can only be found by diving in headfirst.

High school is important because of the last month of senior year, when I began to realize the immeasurable quality of those I've been lucky enough to call my friends.

But most of all, high school is important because I became me and we became us. High school may be a stepping stone, but it taught me how to balance, and more importantly, it taught me to stop running and look down at my reflection. And now that I'm at the end, seeing my face in the water makes me truly appreciate how high school has shaped me.

Plot Twists

Yesterday I read a short book called Bad Monkeys. It was a fun read, with lots of humor and action. I wouldn't describe it as literary fiction, and it wasn't a difficult read, but I enjoyed it a lot.

One thing that Bad Monkeys had plenty of is plot twists. It seemed like every three pages something would be revealed that completely changes the reader's attitude towards the characters. These things were almost always unexpected, and the author did a good job of avoiding the incredibly obvious paths and choosing some different ways. But one of the reasons that this book is commercial is because of the pure number of twists. A great book will lead you along one path for a while, and then will throw a monkey wrench in your perceptions. Bad Monkeys gives you so many plot twists that you never really have time to establish grounded perceptions, and so when the author tries to mess with them, there's nothing there to alter.

But Bad Monkeys is a fun, quick book to read if you like actiony spy books.

I'm Pooped

I am currently in Knoxville, Tennessee, at a regional for the FIRST Robotics Competition. Fayette County's team, 2856, arrived at the motel last night, and all day today was spent at the convention center. Today was the warm-up day, meaning there weren't any official matches. There were practice matches, but those were optional, and the main important items that needed to be done today was to pass "inspection", which is a process in which judges look over every inch of a robot looking for rules violations or safety hazards. While the actual inspection process did not take very long, we spent about 5 hours working on the robot to get it to the point where it could be inspected. There were plenty of problems with the robot, not the least of which were it's occasional inability to move and frequent inability to shoot a Frisbee  which is the objective of the competition.

Today was one of the most tiring days I have ever had. There was plenty of physical labor, and I have no doubt that this contributed to my current state. However, there is an added level of poopyness that comes with mental stress, which there was certainly a lot of today. I find it interesting that being nervous and having to work through very difficult problems speedily can tire me out so quickly. And not just mentally tired, either- I think this contributed to my physical state as well.

Anyway, just thought that was interesting. Hope ya'll are having a good spring break!

p.s. Dustin stole his blog post idea from me.

Rereadabilty

Yesterday, I found myself at home with nothing to do. There was nothing good on TV and my computer wasn't working, and for a while I was bored out of my mind. But then I stumbled upon the 6th Harry Potter book, and started rereading it. For the 5th time.

Everyone has those books that they love to reread. Personally, I love rereading Harry Potter and the Inheritance Cycle (the one with Eragon). There are other books that I like more than these, and yet these are the ones I go to when I'm bored and need something to read. What makes them different from, say, Brave New World or The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, two of my favorite novels?

I think it's a combination of factors that contribute to this phenomenon. The most obvious reason I can think of is that they are all "easy reads", so to speak. They are certainly more commercial than literary, and I don't have to think too hard to understand the plot, the characters motivations, or the overarching themes. Though I do love hard reads, when I'm looking for a book to take my mind of off things, I want something I can just lose myself in. Which brings me to the 2nd factor- entrapment (for lack of a better word). Books like Harry Potter satisfy a child-like fantasy craving inside of me that longs for a character that is both Homeric in nature and easy to understand and relate to. I wish I was Harry Potter, and reading about his adventures allows me to truly lose myself inside of his stories. The last factor that I notice on my list of rereadables is that of series. When I find that perfect book, I enjoy it so much that I never want it to end (see one of my first blog posts about "Good Fiction"). With long series like the Inheritance Cycle, my fantasies can be indulged for much longer than a simple read-through of Brave New World would do.

Here is an article about rereadability that I found interesting. It lists some other factors that make a rereadable book: http://www.whoatemybrain.com/2011/06/rereadability.html

Killing

Is it ever okay to take another human's life?

This is a loaded and incredibly subjective question with hundreds of potential answers. But for this post I'm going to focus on a couple of scenarios.

In a book that I am currently reading (I'm not going to name it so there aren't any spoilers), there is a man who is given the task of killing another person. This is an ordinary man who has never killed anyone or even committed any crime before. The man he is supposed to kill gets drunk every night, goes home, and rapes his wife while his daughter runs outside and sits on the porch crying. I think we can all agree that this is a guilty man to the crimes of rape, physical abuse, and emotional abuse of both the mother and the young girl, who is 8 years old. But is it OK for him to be killed? I realize that potential other factors to this question include the fact that the man doing the killing is a vigilante of sorts and is in no way related to the government or the courts. However, in my mind, there is little difference between killing individually or institutionally, so I will ignore this fact for now.

In my opinion, this man does not deserve to die. I agree that his crimes are horrendous and irredeemable, and in no way am I suggesting that he is innocent. However, in this scenario, I do not believe killing him is the appropriate answer to his crimes. I think putting him behind bars for life is the best solution (excluding issues like prison costs).

The second scenario I'd like to discuss has been in the news a lot recently- drones. For those of you who aren't familiar with drones, they are unmanned planes that are currently in use by the United States in precision strikes outside of the United States. They are most often used against terrorist targets, and there have been many civilian casualties as well. President Obama personally approves every single use of a strike drone, and, though there are plenty of advisers informing him, he has final say on all strikes. Recently, Eric Holder, the current Attorney General, stated that, essentially, the President does have the right to authorize drone strikes against American citizens on American soil.

So the questions here are if it is okay to kill the "bad guys" overseas with the potential death of innocent civilians, if it is okay to kill American citizens right here at home, and if the President should have the ultimate authority on these kinds of decisions. Personally, I am opposed to war. However, when killing the few to save the many (as in the case of killing members of organizations like Al Quida), I think it is a permissible circumstance. As far as killing Americans, my immediate instinct is that this is a horrible thing to do. However, having these thoughts make me think that what this is coming down to is valuing a United States Citizen's life over that of people elsewhere in the World. I am extremely uncomfortable with this idea, as it goes against most of my basic moral principles. However, I think I am reacting more to the fact that taking out Americans seems like an act of betrayal against my fellow countrymen by the government, and less that a life is taken here as opposed to elsewhere. Though this may be myself trying to justify my conflicting moral views. As to the final question of whether the President should have the ultimate power in this scenario, I disagree with it on principle. I think that President Obama is a responsible leader and would listen to the advice of his council closely before making decisions. However, I know future Presidents may not be so responsible, and plenty of people think the current one isn't either. I think that the best way to handle it would be to have a minimum number of cabinet votes to send out a drone strike.

I know I talked about a lot today, and I think the only conclusion that I've come up with is that I need to sit down and think through my morals and ethics. This is an incredibly complicated issue, and my intention is not to try to convince you one way or another by this post, but is merely to try and inform you about a couple of specific scenarios to consider. And I think this is a very important issue to consider, and I encourage everyone to think through it from all possible angles before making any judgments or decisions.

An Open Letter to the Internet

Dear Internet,

     You and I need to talk.

     When I first got you, you were the source for my elementary-school research projects and funny videos. In middle school you grew to include internet games like Club Penguin and World of Warcraft. In high school, you have expanded yet further to provide me with an endless supply of good music, funny videos, interesting articles, and clever web-comics, just to name a few. You have given me opportunities for expanding my horizon that would never have been possible had we never met. You are the gift that simply keeps giving. With you by my side, I can never be bored.

    But I suppose that's the problem, isn't it? Yes, you consistently and constantly entertain me. You link me to the latest incredible scientific discovery day after day. You allow me to multitask beyond belief, listening to music while playing games while writing an essay. I suppose what I'm saying is that you let me escape my life. But maybe an escape isn't what I need right now. Maybe it would be better for me to do my homework as soon as I get home without first looking at the top pictures on FunnyJunk. Maybe it would be better for me to write my essays without the distraction of Spotify. Maybe it would be better for me to get outside and go for a walk in the little free time that I have instead of mindlessly clicking link after link.

     I don't hate you. God knows this is closest thing I've ever felt to love. But I think we need a break. Just so we can try meeting other people for a little while and see how it feels. I'll still be around, and I know you'll be there when I need you. But I think a bit of distance could do us both some good.

Your's Truly,
Aaron Karp


P.S. Thanks for all the porn.

Language

I was talking with my dad today about how language has changed over time. I brought up the subject because I was noticing how many people (myself included) leave out subjects or objects in many of their sentences. For example, "sounds good", or "Fine." These can both mean different things depending on the words around them, but people have taken to relying on context to leave the listener to infer what they meant.

My dad said that this represents a recent degeneration in language. That this phenomenon of texting lingo and  abbreviations is showing a greater downward trend in the intellectual quality of modern culture. I disagree, however. If you look at a sentence from the 17th century and one from the early 1900's, you will see a big drop in explicitness and clarity, just as you would when comparing an early 20th century sentence with one today. Another point my dad brought up was longevity of things such as letters and emails. "Back in the day,"  so to speak, people often wrote very long letters to each other, whereas today, one often receives and sends one-sentence emails. I think that this follows the exact same trend as the sentences mentioned previously.

I view this occurrence as a graph throughout human history. In the stone age, people were not writing long letters to each other, and sentences consisted of grunts. Then, in the iron and bronze ages, language grew greatly, but was still rather bland. In the middle ages and the renaissance, language became much more varied and colorful, and writings much more lengthy. Then, with industrialism and the modern age, language has started to regress back to its origins. I think that this graph would not show an upward line followed by a downward one flattening out. I think that it's more sinusoidal. I think this pattern will continue it's downward trend, but will eventually come back up to renaissance-era heights.

In a salute to modern literature and culture, here's a link to one of my all-time favorite spoken-word poems. (WARNING: naughty words)

Beloved

By this point, I am about halfway through Beloved, and I love it so far. A lot of my friends do not, however. Many of them seem to think that Tony Morrison's difficult-to-understand writing style makes it a bad book. I agree that her writing is not easy to read. It can be a struggle sometimes to understand what she means by a passage. But I don't think this detracts from the book. Rather, I believe it adds to the power of the novel. While I occasionally have to reread a section multiple teams to gain an understanding of it, and yes, this does interrupt the flow of the reading, I like how not everything is explicitly stated. Many things have to be inferred by the reader, and one is constantly having to read in between the lines to get the subtle meaning behind phrases. But I think this is fun, and I enjoy reading literature that makes you work. Of course, this means the readings take more time, which is unfortunate for my cramped schedule, but I don't really mind that much. So you should read Beloved, because it's an excellent book.

Shostakovich

This week I am at All-State Orchestra. One of the pieces we are playing is Shostakovitch's Symphony Number 5. Today's blog post is going to be about why Shostakovitch is an uber-genius.

Dmitri Shostakovitch lived his whole life in Russia. At this time, Russia was a socialist regime ruled by Stalin. As you may have heard, Stalin was not a very friendly guy. Due to his extreme idea of nationalism, there was intense censorship across the cultural spectrum. Stalin heard some of Shostakovitch's early music and deemed it to be upsetting to Russian ideals. While this may not seem like a big deal, at this team, people that upset Russian ideals tended to dissapear rapidly with the aid of the KGB. Shostakovitch became deathly afraid of this fate, and was so paranoid that, when he finished his Symphony No. 4, he refused to let it be premiered in case Stalin did not approve. So what did Shostakovitch do? Wimp out and become a factory worker? No. He wrote one of the greatest works of art ever. Shostakovitch's Symphony No. 5 is freaking amazing. Allow me to explain why.

The whole piece has a very patriotic feel to it- the battle march sections and blaring brass seem to show a real pride in Mother Russia. However, his music goes much deeper than this. Beneath a facade of nationalism lies a sarcastic, angry, scared view of his circumstances. For example, in the first movement, there are many times when the whole orchestra stops and there are three solid individual chords. These chords are harsh and sharp. They are meant to represent the KGB knocking on Shostakovitch's door, an event which he was constantly paranoid about. Another example is the end of the fourth movement. The last two minutes of music consist of a loud brass chorale, which seems very happy and proud. However, the whole section is underscored by the entire string section playing an A. With the same rhythm. Over and over. For two minutes. This is meant to represent how this happiness that Russians supposedly feel towards their leader is strained, forced, and fake.

The reason Shostakovitch is such a bamf is because he was able to write one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever (I didn't mention the 3rd movement- absolutely stunning), and make relevant and active political commentary at the same time. A man with this talent is nothing short of a genius.

I'm attaching two links to this- one is for the fourth movement of his symphony, where you can hear the blaring A's at the end. The other link is to the second movement of his second piano concerto. I know I didn't talk about this at all, but, in my opinion, it is one of the most beautiful works ever, and I highly recommend you listening to it.

Giant Beetle Man

I just read the short story The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka. It was awesome. The story is about a man who wakes up and has been transformed into a giant beetle overnight. Though his mental facilities remain intact, he is (understandably so) treated with shock by his family. They keep him in his room, and the only member of his family that helps him is his younger sister, who gives him food and cleans his room. Over the course of the story, the man is cruelly and systematically alienated from his friends, family, and all of humanity. In the end, even his sister says that "the Monster" couldn't be her brother, as it would have left long ago to alleviate the family of his immense burden. That night, the man dies, after starving himself for weeks on end in depression. The story ends with the family being growing back together and being immensly happy and free now that the man is dead.

This is a story about alienation, and one that is extremely powerful and affecting. The story is a self-reflective work about how Kafka feels about his own life. He had a complex relationship with his sometimes-abusive father, and he was very close with his younger sister. The story goes into multiple types of alienation. Obviously, there's the physical aspect; the fact that he is concretely separate from the human race. Beyond that, there is the alienation of himself from his family. They do not realize he can understand them as he cannot speak, so they talk about him when he can hear them. They do not understand him, and they fail to recognize his positive qualities at all.

These are all feelings that many people experience in their lives. Kafka is able to take this extreme example and make it relatable and  applicable to any reader, which is a feat not easily accomplished. I would definitely recommend this short read to anyone interested in reading really awesome stuff.

The Road

I have now finished The Road for a second time. I like the ending a lot. After two hundred and fifty pages of depression and bleak outlooks, the last couple of pages finally give the reader some hope.

I have heard a couple of different interesting theories about the final section. One is that the family that takes the boy in is farming children to eat. I heard this theory before I reread the ending, and it upset me greatly. Now that I have looked at it further, however, I don't see this theory as accurate as all. First of all, the amount of resources it would take to farm children is completely unrealistic. The most benificial practice for the adults to partake in would be eating the children as soon as they are born. It takes too much time and food to grow them up to be not a whole lot more massive than they would be early in life. Also, I think the last two pages destroys this idea. The boy talks about the future, and how they see fish at one point in the mountains. If he's been kept alive for that long, it is extremely unlikely that he will be killed and eaten by the family protecting him.

Another theory I've heard is that the boy dies with the man. As the man said earlier in the book, the only dreams for men in peril are of peril. Any other kind is bad news. The boy experiences these good things at the very end, and it almost seems too good to be true. This theory states that the boy has passed away or is currently in the process of passing away, and these are his last dreams.

I don't believe in either of these theories, though they are interesting. I think the ending is much more straightforward- the boy lives happily ever after. The end.

Auditions

The next month is going to be a very stressful time for me. Though I have finished applying to all of my colleges, I chose to apply to a few music schools. These require live auditions. Differerent schools have different requirements, but most of them make you play one major and minor scale with arpeggios, an etude, 2 contrasting movements from a Bach suite, and a movement from a concerto- all memorized.

The scales are kind of self-explanatory. But the etude is interesting. An etude is a short work designed to hone a certain technique or skill. There are many different composers for etudes with hundreds of etudes between them. Choosing one for an audition is a tricky thing. I chose Kreutzer's etude #16. This one focuses on getting even trills and a reliable bow stroke. Etudes are usually not easy to memorize, but this one is particularly difficult because it is essentially the exact same measure over and over again. There is not much of a melodic line, which is very helpful for memorization.

For my Bach, I am playing the first two movements (Prelude and Allemande) from Suite no. 3, in C Major. This is actually my favorite part of the audition. Both of these movements are relatively simple on the page, but there are infinite possibilities for interpretation and expansion when you delve deeper into the music. Every single cellist and violist has their own style for playing different Bach, and an important part of growing up musically is choosing one you like the best.

The last part of my audition is the movement from a concerto. I am playing Fantasie for Viola and Orchestra by J. Hummel. This piece is split up into 3 sections. The first is similar to a heavy Mozart opera, and is slow and melodramatic. The second is more like a light Mozart Opera. It is faster and less ponderous. The last movement is very fast and is definitely for showing-off. There are tricky technical passages in this third section that are not present in the first two.

The audition process is long and difficult, but it's made a lot easier because I enjoy the pieces that I chose.

To Be Or Not To Be

Suicide is a very controversial topic. It was presented earlier this year in our reading of Hamlet, and was brought up again this week in The Road.

The Road presents two opposing perspectives on suicide. The mother kills herself, while the father chooses to try and live. The world has been destroyed by some presumably man-made apocalypse, and most people are dead. Many that aren't dead have joined Blood Cults and other such groups that brutally rape, kill, and eat people. This is not exactly an ideal scenario to be in. The mother says that she can't go on trying to survive, and she'd rather not live in such a cruel and messed-up world. The father, on the other hand, does not commit suicide. He chooses this path because of his son. He loves his son very much, and wants him to grow up and live a happy life. The thought of either killing his son or leaving his son alone is unbearable.

Some might call suicide an easy way out. I would definitely agree that it prevents a good deal of suffering and harm, both physical and emotional. However, I don't think it should be looked on (in this instance at least) with disdain. With the world in such an awful place, the question arises about whether it is better to try and survive, or whether it is simply not worth it.

I'm not suggesting I have an answer to this question, and hopefully I'll never need one. I just want to stress the fact that suicide is not as black-and-white and issue as it is often portrayed.