An Albatross to me is something that is given to us to help us through tough situations and get through hard times, but we take them for granted, push them aside, and then we suffer because of the poor decision we make to ignore it. Some albatrosses that we see in our lives are all around us. Some examples are guidance counselors, coaches, parents, exercise and eating healthy, and studying. Guidance counselors are albatrosses because they are designed to help you succeed in your studies in school and they do all they can and put so much effort into keeping your grades up by getting tutors, extra help from teachers, and many many more things, but most students don’t even know who their guidance counselor is! They just think they can get by with terrible grades and no one will care. But those students will soon find out that they need their guidance counselor when they find out they were denied a full ride scholarship for sports because of their grades. Coaches and parents are the same way. They are there to help you get better at the things you do, they are there to help talk to you, and they help calm you down whenever you need it. But when people ignore their parents and coaches, they start to behave differently, they might get cut from the team or be riding the the bench, or they might even get into some drug related habits. Exercise and eating healthy can be an albatross because they are developed so that you are both physically and mentally ready to do anything you need to do. They help you start off the day right and they help you keep focused in school. But when people ignore these and “wear them on their neck”, they start to gain weight, they become out of shape, and they become unhappy with the way their look, which ends up to even more work to try to lose the weight. Most people respond to these daily actions by simply doing the things they are supposed to do. They visit their guidance counselors regularly so that they keep on top of their grades, they keep good relationships with their coaches and parents so that they not only have someone there to back them up when they need help, but also so that they can do the things in their daily lives even better. People exercise daily and constantly eat healthy food so that they can stay focused every day with their daily activities, and so that they can be satisfied with their physical appearance. Moeller can address some of these “albatrosses” by keeping the food in the cafeteria healthy and delicious, having the coaches and parents constantly involved with school and sport activities, and by having the guidance counselors be assertive and have their students come visit them at least twice a month.
An Ode to Sleep
At the end of a day in which i work
I ache and burn, from toe to eye
My body is a shaking tower
That will soon from from the sky.
As the sun sets in the far east
With a gaze of pink and orange and red
My mind soon will be in a feast
Of dreams and hopes, and books i have not yet read
The ancient old friend of everyone who’s been
They long too meet him at a day’s end.
When they lie their head down, they don’t say a peep.
With soft sheets and pillows touching their skin
No worries enter the minds, as dreams start to blend
How I love thee, oh sweet and joyous sleep.
My Ode is similar to Keats because we both use imagery in the beginning of our ode, they both use a reference to ancient things (mine says “the ancient old friend” while Keats uses ancient Greek mythology), and they both are honoring something that is beautiful and pleasing. They are different because my ode is honoring something that is abstract while Keats uses an Grecian Urn which is concrete. They are also different because Keats uses metaphors of brides, children, and a Sylvan Historian while my ode uses metaphors of feasts and towers. My imagery in this ode is using colors of the sunset, soft pillows and sheets, shaking body, and the sun setting in the east. My metaphors were a shaking tower, minds being in a feast, and an old ancient friend.
In class we read and commented openly about how being both young and old have their advantages and disadvantages. This discussion was similar to the material we learned in class. We learned about the “lost youths”, children in Uganda who live right in the middle of a war every day of their lives, and life of children in the poetry of William Blake. The “lost youths” was all about how children were treated in factories during the Industrial Revolution. They were working 19 hours a day, they were shackled at night so they didn’t run away, they were tortured and beaten whenever they got caught trying to run away, and their parents sold them into slavery! Their parents who are supposed to love them dearly, sold their own children into slavery for money! There’s only one really logical way we can respond to this, and that is by doing our best to make sure that it never happens again. I know damn well that I’d never sell my children into slavery like that and I know most of us would do the same. Mrs. Ring also came in to talk to our class at the end of the day to show us what life for a child in Uganda, Africa was like. Turns out,their life, even today, is 10x worse than the life of a child back in the Industrial Revolution. A Uganda child, is in the constant danger of being abducted and manipulated into believing that violence is OK. They live in the middle of a country-wide war that has been going on for many many years, and they,still today, this very moment, are still living in that constant fear of being abducted, most likely killed, and if not that then made a killer. The poems that we read by William Blake were all about genuine love and naive trust toward all humankind, unquestioned belief in Christian doctrine, profound disillusionment with human nature and society, and one entering a state of “Experience” sees cruelty and hypocrisy only too clearly but is unable to imagine a way out. Ways that we can fight social injustice is by treating everyone as equal just like our forefathers and the way God wants us to treat each other.
“My Hometown” is a song by Bruce Springsteen about how as a little boy, he cherished the town he grew up in and he took pride in it. As the boy grew up to be a father, he realized that the memories that he had form his childhood were the best memories of his life and that he needed to hold on to those memories for his entire life, even with the modern day changes going on around him. As he becomes a father, he then gives that same message to his children and how they shouldn’t waste a single moment of their childhood and worship every single second of it, and to never let anything go. In the poem that we read “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey”, we see someone who is returning to their hometown after being away for 5 years. He starts off describing what he seeing and it’s all calm. He starts to see the life in all things and how they all were to him before he left and how they’ve changed to what they are now. Then the mood changes to tense when he starts to ponder on the whole society/city life vs. nature business. Then he starts to remember his childhood and he consider’s when he was younger. He remembers how much passion and yearning he was when he was young and sees himself in his sister. The overall message of this poem is that whenever you are in times of grief “remember this moment”, which means, whenever you are going through some tough times, remember the happier times and try to work back to how things were back then. The no impact project is basically something that gets people aware of the way they’re acting and promote behavioral change. Some ways that I can become more connected with nature is by eating more fresh fruits and vegetables, turning off lights when I’m not using them, cut down my shower times, carpool, and maybe even just get out of the house everyday. With the energy that I’ll be saving, it will no longer help decrease my footprint, but it will also help me become closer to nature and live the way God wants us to.
Everything new seems to be wired
Phones, T.V.’s, video games, and iPod’s
They glisten in the people’s eyes just like gods.
But these bright new things are soon to expire.
They all are great, but hide a true wonder:
The nature of the world that some hold dear.
Where kids can play and laugh and not have fear,
But new ideas, bury them down under.
We need to come back to the way things were
Before we lost the things we held so dear
So go outside, play, run, laugh, jump and stir.
And do it quick, before it is a smear
Your childhood can be lost in a great blur
But when the smog is thin, it becomes clear.
This poem is about how the world looks at electronics way too much. We focus on the new and shiny things when we were doing just fine with the things we had. Not only we give up the things we used to have, but our pasts and the things we grew up with are lost and are worth nothing to us like they used to.
Today, we look back at the Industrial Revolution and we see images of mass production, poor labor conditions, crowded cities, sad faces, and filthy environments. But people don’t even think about it, but that time period is much like the business industry today! For example, in the past, people were mainly focused on mass production, and today, we try to create and sell the newest and coolest things as fast as possible before the next thing is created then we sell than at a fast rate. Another example of how the Industrial Revolution and today’s industries are similar are that the owners don’t have a very good personal connection with the workers. I, personally have worked in a big time place, Kings Island, where the owner is in charge of multiple multi-million dollar theme parks across the country. He has only come into Kings Island one time in the 3 year span of time in which I have worked there, and he didn’t stop once to talk to employees, or supervisors, or anyone who was in higher authority there, except maybe the manager and head business promoters of the park. Very similar to my situation, back in the Industrial Revolution, the many, many workers who worked the dirty, filthy factories, didn’t even know who they were working for, or who their boss was. If I had to choose a time period back then, I would most definitely prefer living in the agricultural lifestyle that people lived in before the Industrial Revolution took over. I mean who wouldn’t? I’d get so much gratification out of the things I make myself in my home, and make money off of it, rather than making something in a factory next to people I don’t even know, making some weird thing that is going to be sold by the company for more money than even I make.
I took the footprint quiz and it said that if everyone lived the lifestyle that I live, it would take 5.01 Earths to sustain that lifestyle. To me, that doesn’t seem too bad, but at the same time, it seems way too extreme. It doesn’t seem too bad because most people end up with like 8 and a half of 10 Earths because of how they live. 5.01 just seems like a number that makes me feel like I’m living a normal lifestyle and that things need improvement, but at the same time, things can stay the same. It seems a way too extreme, also, because it’s 5 FREAKING WORLDS!! We can barely manage this one! Let alone 5 worlds being managed by if we can barely handle one world keeping peace, five worlds would basically become “War of The Worlds” Reality!
