The Dream Job

First off: I will attempt to make this a weekly blog.
EDIT: No one reads this anyway so never mind.

Second off: Entertaining words on a screen.
So, I have been doing a lot of school lately, and for what? An education, and subsequently, a well-paying job, possibly one that exercises my intellectual capabilities. Perhaps I grow up and help develop fusion energy reactors, effectively saving the world via clean energy. Mentally challenging? Yes. Well-paying? Probably. The dream job? Not remotely close. So-called "real" jobs such as the aforementioned fusion energy research and development one contain unusually large quantities of what is known to many as, "work". Work, contrary to popular belief, is not necessarily an element of a job. Many do consider it what makes a job a "real" job, but some exist that require no work at all.
One such example is my "dream job". A YouTube Content Creator. This, like "sanitary engineer", is an over-inflated version of the real job title, so one sounds less stupid when discussing their profession. A YouTube
Content Creator is just someone who makes videos on YouTube. Thanks to Google and advertising, this can now be a paying career. For some, it means that concept of "work" I wrote of earlier. Perhaps it may be less stressful than nuclear fusion, but nonetheless, there is still effort that must be spent. This is true in the case of animators, musicians, filmmakers, or other people who put effort into their videos so that people will want to watch them. For some, however, natural talent goes a long way. An extremely accurate example of this is the case of the Game Grumps. YouTube users JonTron (Jon Jafari) and Egoraptor (Arin Hansen) are the creators of this channel, and as a result, their occupation is to play video games in front of a microphone and say funny stuff. It would be difficult to even conceptualize a job that is both easier than that and humanly possible. They quite obviously put little effort or planning into their work, and it's still entertaining enough that a few hundred thousand people watch every video of theirs, myself included. I'm even buying their commemorative t-shirt. I like them, but I'm jealous as a desert cactus looking at a postcard from the Amazon. HOW COME THEY GET ALL THE RAIN AND I DON'T, HUH? NO FAIR!
I doubt I will ever be a YouTube Content Creator; however, if this blag is successful enough, I might be able to scrape a few bucks out of it. Thanks, Google. If I have enough readership, I might just graduate college with a bunch of degrees and then type funny words (such as "blubber") on a keyboard for a meager wage.
So, share this blog with others, or else I'll have no choice but to be a productive member of society!

¡No Más!

In English we're still reading The House on Mango Street. Still. At this point, I'm looking forward to reading Oedipus, the charming story of a guy who marries his mom and subsequently stabs his eye out with a poky needle. Will we ever be done? Not only that, but now I have to write versions of Cisneros's vignettes for myself, mimicking her style. So... Un... Manly...

On the other hand, my "My Name" vignette was actually a pretty neat piece of writing. However, my blog is not a place to whine about my invented tragic past. It's a place for me to whine about my 

(not nearly as bad as I make it out to be) present. 

So, I'll include a short summary of my "My Name" vignette:

MY NAME MAKED ME SAD BLAH BLAH NO IDENTITY BLAH I DON'T EAT ERASERS BLAH I CHANGED MY NAME BLAH BLAH IT DIDN'T MAKE ME HAPPIER BLAH BLAH NAMES DON'T MAKE PEOPLE, PEOPLE MAKE NAMES BLAH.

Ah, philosophical insights into the deep feelings I have concerning the true nature of my identity, and how my name may or may not represent it as I desire.

Speaking of psychology, while googling "Oedipus" to correct my spelling, I noticed this article on Wikipedia called "Oedipus Complex". Do NOT look it up. For some reason, Freud saw Oedipus on stage once and thought, "Hmm. I'm a pretty influential psychologist. I bet I can declare the grodiest psychological complex ever, and write some documentation on it, and EVERYONE WILL TAKE ME SERIOUSLY!" Freud was then kicked out of the theater for disruptive maniacal laughter.

Thanks, Freud. Now Oedipus is gonna suck too.

This blog still is mostly Englishy. Huh.

Struttin' the Loaf in Chemistry

I've got a lot of work to do, so I won't get to post very often. I haven't stopped, though. I dream of one day blogging for audiences of more than just my mom, maybe even for a person I don't know! 

I've started school as a sophomore, and I have approximately 6.32 gargillion liters of homework every night. Also, I have a teacher who really likes the phrase "so-called". He slaps this on so many words and phrases that the phrase has completely lost meaning for me. Did it ever really mean anything? 

Mirriam-Webster.com says it means "commonly named" or  "falsely or improperly so named". Mr. [not naming names] usually says it with a tone of voice indicating the latter. Now how does this apply in the phrase "out of so-called time"?! Yup, that word "time" there sure has so many synonyms and interpretations. Really, we should refer to it as "ticky-tockies" instead. MISTER ______, WE'RE OUT OF TICKY-TOCKIES! I HAVE TO GET TO CALC! See also: "so we don't have to so-called go back to our seats." I think he means that when he talks about us going back to our seats, he really is talking about us learning our family history so that we can know more about from whence we came. The class will get so much more interesting now I know that when he says "so-called", the next thing he says is a misnomer, or maybe a common term for something. "Staggering your so-called coming up here". Yeah, I sometimes refer to "going up there" as "struttin' the loaf", but I suppose that term is the usual one.

I'd better get back to my work.

Keep struttin' the loaf, blaggers.

Don't Leave Me!

I'll post more! I'll be funny! I promise! Or your money back, guaranteed!
So, now that I don't have to write about English specifically, I usually won't. It'll just be a general all-purpose blog for things. All the things. Also, I'm not Filip. I'm Danny. Nice to meet you, Blagosphere. At any rate, I might still post things about English class, et cetera. ( That's Latin for "etc".) Might as well talk about English now. We have a summer assignment. Huzzah! I might just be the only teenager who actually appreciates summer assignments. Then, all of the people in the class are good enough students, since the slackers didn't do the summer assignment.
Do not interpret this as "I am going to enjoy this summer assignment." I might say that, but only if I was reading this blag aloud or under the influence of many different mind-altering substances, or both. I have to write an essay on The House on Mango Street. The book was originally supposed to be titled The Many Problems of a Poor Mexican Girl, but the publisher advised Sandra Cisneros to change it. (Fun Fact: Great Expectations, similarly, was originally Pip's Plethora of Problems, but the publisher advised Dickens to try again on the title.) [1] This is one of those books in which the reader is supposed to connect to the character, and have a mind-opening experience through the eyes of the protagonist. As a middle class half-Japanese-American male, I can't really identify so well. I have never longed for a dress that I had not the money to buy, and homeless people rarely if ever try to molest me. Though, on occasion, me and my bros go out to the park to jump double-dutch, and talk about developing hips.
No. We don't.
Ah, well. I'm sure many girls and perhaps some boys are really taken by this book, and they don't make us read bad books in English, right? [2] I won't disparage it too much then. It seems to be on the whole written for women. I'll just read it and try to keep an open mind. Maybe someday, I'll look like those girls on the billboards.

But hopefully not.
___________________
[1] Fun Fact: Every time I use the phrase "Fun Fact", It's not really a fact at all but rather a Fun Fat Lie. (But not this time).
[2] Answer: Lord of the Flies.

The Final Post

Perhaps this post won't be final. I have actual readers. However, it is the last required post.

As I look back through my first blag posts, I think to myself, "This is as boring as watching paint dry with Gordon Brown!" I was really formal and uptight. Although I do pride myself on my extensive vocabulary, I do not talk in the fashion of ostensibly stuck up people when I use my verbose manner of speech. Rather, I talk like a babbling fool with a dictionary, who happens to accidentally say the right big words. Overall, my blags go from constrained and formal to silly and entertaining enough to read. I remember not enjoying writing my blags very much at the beginning of the year, but now it is a veritable metric bucket of fun. I can see, as the year goes on, my influence by humor columnist Dave Barry manifests itself, and I become a little less intelligible, and a little more like my real self. Also, I accumulated readers from elsewhere. At first, I thought, "Oh noes, my work is going on the Internet, for all the world to see! I must sound sooper sophisticated," but as the year wore on, that thought was replaced by, "It's 3 in the morning; no big words for me." Even though it was probably bad for me to do my blags at such an hour, it actually helped me lighten up and loosen the shackles I forged for myself. I then realized that writing can be really fun. I never really enjoyed writing as a child, even though my teachers told me I was good at it. Now, I can be myself, and use dry humor, ALL CAPS, crazy metaphors, and elevated speech all at once, like I do when speaking, of course substituting all caps with shouting every now and then. This experience might even teach me to write more in the future.

My blag posts began this metamorphosis starting with my third, "The Late Short Stories Show", posted at 3:07 AM. I was real tired and a bit loopy from being up so late, so I decided to make it more humorous. My next one, "The 1930's. Eww." had more of a dry style of humor in it, since it was at an earlier hour, but after what I shall call the Humor Revolution. My third post-revolution post, "To Pwn a Mockingbird: First Impressions" was really rather short and contained little humor or big words. On that one, I think I just didn't fee like writing. Actually, in retrospect, my To Kill a Mockingbird posts are pretty boring and uninformative. HMM. I WONDER IF THAT MIGHT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE SOURCE MATERIAL? Once I'm done with all that, I have "The Year After the Previous Year To This Year That Is Not The Old Year". What was I thinking with that title? The blag post itself, however, is pretty spiteful, actually. At that point in the year, I'm weary of so much work, since I have been metaphorically running for a long time and the metaphorical finish line is still out of my metaphorical sight. Now, I'm on the metaphorical home stretch, and I'm metaphorically sprinting as fast as I am able. My next post, the first one about Great Expectations, is one that I am particularly proud of. My ORIGINAL invention, that I came up with in a couple of hours, is actually a really good one. I know exactly how I would make it, and it would be very effective. I might actually try to build it over the summer. After this post, I settle into another generic stretch, much like my To Kill a Mockingbird posts. AGAIN, WHAT COULD THAT INDICATE? MAYBE GREAT EXPECTATIONS IS A TAD DULL? No, that's not possible. When we move on to Romeo and Juliet, my posts become better. I enjoyed R&J, but it was very hard to read. Failure is funny from a third person perspective, though, so it was more fun to blag about. And my own vocabulary compared to that of my peers in my non-honors classes is a joke in its own right, so the Word Power post was my absolute favorite as both a reader and writer. As for the last line, you just try writing with "Hearts on Fire" from Rocky playing in the background and not write anything like that.

Mia, my sister, said that Honors English would make me hate writing.

Nope.

Thanks, unconstrained writing assignments.

In addition, thank you, Mrs. Gilman, for a great year of English. Also, please do not discount my analysis due to jokes in this post. That's what it is all about.

"The journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step" -Lao Tzu

I'm almost done with what I consider to be the first year of my serious education.

It was a pretty good step. I'm ready for the next 1,318,680.

No Time, No Time at All

Romeo and Juliet, a timeless classic. I do think that this story has endured for so long because it's about things in humans, like mistakes and love, that shall never pass. Bad decision-making is the fuel that drives the plot-truck carrying a shipment of love to the reader. (It crashes on the way there.) Overall, the themes present in this story are about basic fundamental truths of humans, and that might just be why said humans enjoy this story to the extent that they do.
Although I cannot think of any connections, probably because I rarely read novels that contain star-crossed lovers with problems, but apparently some Twilight book has two warring factions that make happy peace time because some person or people die.

The Shakespeare Code

Decoding Shakespeare, while it is something I am not too shabby at, is not something I really enjoy. I prefer to read things that I can understand at least the surface level of. However, it feels pretty good when I can figure something out. My greatest personal triumph happened when I was attempting to figure out what Friar Lawrence was talking about his lovely flowers. I spent a few minutes poring over the text with steadfast determination, and I finally figured out that he meant that flowers and herbs have great healing powers, but sometimes people use them for this noble purpose too much, which corrupts them; people should only use what they really need. This is foreshadowing not for the play, but for REAL LIFE. Many years into the future, the year 2012, mankind is running out of resources, and Friar Lawrence predicted that and he's not even real. MIND BLOWN. I felt absolutely brilliant, as if I were the smartest person in the world.

 

...until I learned that I was wrong.

RAAARGH! WEIRD WORDS NOT MAKE SENSE! FILIP CRUSH PUNY BOOK!

This Title Will Not Contain the Word "Character"

...Oops.

I've had some trouble connecting to characters in Romeo and Juliet, but that's true of anything I am expected to connect to. A traditional "character" is usually nothing like me. I fit quite a few different roles, not one, and not the same one all of the time. I, like Tybalt, am prone to sudden flashes of anger, however I am not short-sighted and thick. Most of the time, in fact, I'm not at all like him. Like Friar Lawrence, I am often the one who holds back and gives sagely advice about the future. I could identify as sort of a cross between the two most different characters in Romeo and Juliet. I guess that says something about me, doth it not? I will, however choose Friar Lawrence as my character, since it is hard for me to say that Tybalt made a right decision when he represents the side of me that acts rashly and makes bad decisions. I agree with Friar Lawrence in marrying Romeo and Juliet, because a way to connect the two warring houses with love and a union of two young people may be just the thing to keep the peace.

Also, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is turning out to to be a very interesting book. I've read three words so far and I am very frightened, but intrigued.

Word Power

Oh, man. Word Power. I've had a particularly extensive active vocabulary for all of my life, but I have leaned so many new things. I quite enjoy expanding my vocabulary. I have a particularly amusing anecdote to blag about a time when I was in P.E.
Since we're reading R+J Foreverz!, which is a play, I'll write it in a script format.
BLAKE: Man, she's hot.
MYSELF: [languidly] She does display a rather callipygian figure, does she not?
BLAKE: What the ****'s that supposed to mean?

Enriching conversation, as one can clearly observe.

Due to word power, I can communicate with my fellow classmates and impress people who are impressed by the use of sesquipedalian language, or sound pretentious to those who are not. I'll surely find the opportunity to bust out my word powers and save the day, or perhaps sentence, someday.
I SHALL RISE FROM THE ASHES LIKE A VERBALLY ARTICULATE PHOENIX AND SHOW THE WORLD THE TRUE MEANING OF LANGUAGE!

Sorry. Listening to touching music gottapostthisnowBAM!

Shake Shake Shakespeare

I really quite enjoyed the movie A Midsummer Night's Dream. Having never read or seen performed the play, I had no premonition of the movie failing in comparison to the original story, so I just saw it like it is, and I was rather entertained. I had little trouble understanding the movie; however, I believe that is made possible in part by interpretation of the gestures and body language of the characters.
Reading Shakespeare will ergo be very different. While there is effectively no nonverbal communication in text, it is also not progressing steadily through time. I can stop at any time I wish, and go back, slow down, or do anything I need to to help me understand the play. I think this will allow me to understand Romeo and Juliet better than A Midsummer Night's Dream, at the price of additional work.

Compeyson: Villain, Thief, Messer-Upper of Pretty Much Everything.

(Interior monologue of Compeyson)

"A fool and his money are soon parted." Never has that been more true. Some might say that what I do is wrong, but they are the ones guilty of error. It's not wromg to break the law, it's all part of the natural order of life. I weed out the gullible folk. Others will then learn to be on their toes. I teach the human race a lesson. People should be thanking me for helping them. Swindling is honest work; just like any other trained laborer, I must use my skill and wits to make a living. I do wonder what has become of Magwitch. That was a smooth job, pinning the blame on him. I got off easy. Was that just? Perhaps I-- No. He's a fool and a barbaric murderer. He tried to kill me! He's still at large, somewhere in the world. I must do something about him.

Star Man: Pip!

If I were to write a five-paragraph essay, I would use the theme of what is important in life, and how that is shown through the text, especially in the relationship between Pip and Estella. I chose this because it's the only thing I've really enjoyed about the book so far. I especially liked Pip's killer speech. Knock 'em (well, her, because Estella's merely a weapon) dead, Pip. The way that Pip gives up Joe, deeming Estella more important, and then is forced to give her up due to Magwitch, whom Pip does not even like, shows that Pip should have realized that Joe is an important person in his life. Bros before, well, you get the concept.

EXPECTATIONS OF GREATNESS

Great Expectations, so far, has been a somewhat interesting book. Most of the time, it's quite difficult to understand. However, to help me cope with the Dickensian language, I have a copy of the book on my Kindle that has an integrated study guide, complete with chapter summaries. Normally I will read the chapter, make notes of what I did not understand, and then read the summary to help fill in those gaps.

At school, I just do the assigned work, because that's all I have time for. Sometimes we discuss questions, but we don't do that so much anymore. That's okay, though. What I don't understand I get from the chapter summary. I do quite enjoy discussion, however. It not only lets me look real smart-like, but it allows for a greater understanding of the text.

The Importance of LIFE.

In Great Expectations, the importance of life is shown through the text, much like a mustard stain on yellow paint is clearly visible through a six-foot-thick wall of lead to a blind person. That simile means that this isn't easy. According to me yesterday, something that is important in life is working hard to achieve your goals. In the story, Pip is very excited to go to London and is expecting it to be a beautiful place. It's dirty, the streets are narrow, it's dark, and people are dying a lot. He doesn't get a big manor, but rather an apartment with dirty windows. To have his dream completed for him, without any of his effort, caused him to appreciate London less.
In my experience, working for something makes it so much better, as you are able to see the fruits of your labor for yourself. When something is given to me, that's nice, but I don't appreciate it the way I appreciate something that I've worked at for a long time.

Blag Post that Requires Work: I Invent an Invention Via the Process of Inventationism.

The "tecnology"* in the 1800's is pretty revolutionary. The battery, steam-powered car (fail), gas lighting, match, tin can, typewriter, raincoat, and stethoscope, to name a few, were all invented in the early 1800's. Since the part of the book that we've read takes place around 1812, only a few of these are available to Pip[squeak]. Pip and company did enjoy some conveniences, however. They had fire, and the wheel, agriculture, language, rocks, and all sorts of cunning innovations. Less jokingly, they would have had oil lighting, candles, a fireplace by which to sit, and a clock to tell time with.

I have to come up with a brilliant invention now. That's real easy. [In real time, hours pass.]
BRAINBLAST!!!!!

The Firebolt
Fire-lighting in a flash!
Ever have problems lighting your fire? This revolutionary new item, the Firebolt, will do all of the work for you! Striking flint on steel has never been so easy. Similar in design to a crossbow, just draw back the "bolt" (it's attached to the string, so no fear), hold it to your tinder, and let go! You'll have a roaring fire in minutes. Keep away from children and arsonists.

WARNING: FIRE IS HOT.

*Information from a web site that is is mispeld is most definitely valid. 

The Year After the Previous Year To This Year That Is Not The Old Year

Year, Year! For am to tell a tale of myself, and as everyone knows, I am terribly interesting. This year, I am going to resolve to not get any worse. That doesn't seem to hard, righ-WRONG! I've been able to hold up my grades (at an A level), so I intend to continue to do so, but now things are really challenging. Even more so than in the middle school of privacy. I intend to keep on being a generally good person, and continue to take taekwondo. Mayhap I will receive my black belt this summer. That seems to be a legitimate resolution. I also intend to keep on living, eating, sleeping, and trucking. And working. When I look to the future, I see work. Work so that I can do more work later, to open up work opportunities. Workception. That's why I stopped looking to the future. That's why I seem short-sighted. I do not like what the future looks like. It's ugly. So I don't want to look at it anymore. I'll just keep on truckin'. I'm not entirely certain what that means.

Bonus supah secret awesome chocolaty fudge yummy message:
My original resolution was to not make any false promises. But I broke it by making it.