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.