English 9

Mini Inquiry Poem

June 17, 2016 — 1 Comment

stock-photo-yin-yang-symbol-ice-and-fire-146573666

The In-Between

I follow dreams

You follow rules

I traveled places

You stayed in school

I live on impulse, throb and breathe emotions

You care for objects, and live in slow motion

I am made of passion, destruction, and desire

A war, a bomb, an undying fire

I’m different, dangerous, and quite odd

You are made of order, conformity, rules

A courtroom, a statue, a blind fool

You’re molded, unnoticeable, and bow to neon gods

I battle

You sleep

Yet we both

Face defeat

It’s unfortunate

We have no in-between

We are two sides of a coin

Heads and tails

We follow different paths

And both seem to fail

I listen to no one

You listen to all

But without an inner balance

We’re both our own downfall

I cannot stop

You cannot start

I have no brain

You have no heart

Balance Video

This poem is a rhymed poem by Logan Willis, and it demonstrates the need for balance when it comes to societal beliefs, and the lack many have. He answers the inquiry question “when is it acceptable to challenge the views of society?” by showing it is acceptable when you understand the need for balance and are prepared to exercise that need. If you never question, you’ll be the person referred to as “you”, and if you question all the time and too much, you’ll be the person referred to as “I”.

Interconnectedness and Whirligig

April 18, 2016 — 1 Comment

interconnectedness

Interconnectedness is a very big part of our lives, and I chose it because it is very prominent in Whirligig. Interconnectedness is all about how our actions reach out very far, beyond their original intent, causing a sort of ripple. The interconnected actions usually have a theme too, like if you were to do something kind, the actions it would cause would most likely be more kind ones, whereas if you did something unkind, it would most likely cause unkind actions.

In Whirligig, interconnectedness is one of many themes and probably the biggest and the one most focused on, and so we can relate it lots to our own lives. In Whirligig, all of the happenings at the party (Chaz making fun of him, Brent drinking alcohol, Brianna rejecting Brent) all led up to Brent’s decision to drive home and attempt to kill himself. This leads to killing Lea, which causes Brent to have to meet her parents. They send him on a mission across the country, and it spreads the interconnectedness further. He builds whirligigs in different cities, and each has an impact on a different person, causing different events and different changes. Brent begins to believe that all of these people he’s affecting and that affected him are all very interconnected, in what’s called a karass, a group of people who do not choose each other but all are very connected and play important parts in each other’s lives. He meets some people who he believes are in his karass, including the girl he killed, Lea.

This connects to real life, as before, because our actions in real life stem out and cause ripples. Like Brent killing Lea, which causes his whirligigs to change lives, all of us in real life unknowingly affect other lives. Interconnectedness is the main theme of the book, and is a big part of life, which connects life to the book quite a lot.

Whirligig Introductory Assignment- Alien

April 2, 2016 — 1 Comment

The Weekly Wazrik

Human Youth Studies Article

            Greetings, readers. As you may know, I, the reporter Erthoo Umba, recently went undercover to the human planet of Earth to study their youth, and I must say that my findings did not disappoint. It was interesting to see how different they were from the other human stages of growth.

First, I decided to go to a main hub of youth activity under the alias of “John Smith”, to what the humans call “school”, specifically Riverside, which I believe is the name of an animal life form on Earth.

At this “school”, the students would move along through different study rooms learning different things, but in between these studies, they had an open space for free time, or “lunch” as they called it. Some study rooms gave out “homework”, assignments and tasks that the students were to do in their free time. After a bit of research and observation, I found this was a big stressor for most of the human youth, as they found it difficult to balance social life and this “homework”.

I decided to look more into their stress, and found that lots of their stress related to social life or status, which seems very dominant in the human youth culture. Most of their actions, decisions, and relationships are at least somewhat based off of social status or popularity. What they wear, what they say, how they act, and who they interact with. They even had their own strange language I could not understand, with one human commenting on a location as “sick”, when we all know only life forms contract illness. Combined with the “homework”, I could see why they were in stress when they worried about such futile topics. Some of the humans could not handle this stress as well as others, and turned to substances known as “alcohol” and “drugs”, which gave the user relief when consumed.

I knew I couldn’t come back with just this, so I decided to infiltrate a human “party”, which was a gathering of fun and enjoyment. I found the details of one, and went to it that night. As I arrived, I heard loud “music”, which is a compilation of sounds similar to our varillix. When I entered the residency of the humans where the “party” was taking place, I found that many of them had the “alcohol” I mentioned early. After some interviews, I found that many did it only to fit in, as they wouldn’t be “cool”, unless they followed everyone else. One human even said “I don’t really wanna be here, but everyone else is, so I should too.” Which puzzled me as the human youth seemed almost robbed of their free will.

The next day, I began my trip home, and let me say, I felt very confused that day. The human youth were so strange, concerned so much on what others thought, that they gave up their own identities.

This is Erthoo Umba, signing off. I hope the article has brought enjoyment.

 

(A momentframe I took at the party)

Mushroom Poem

February 23, 2016 — 1 Comment

I think it’s a metaphor for how things take time and won’t happen overnight, specifically reaching equality. The mushrooms are the groups with less rights, and the mushrooms growing is them slowly reaching equality.