The Importance of...(Que The Ever Spontaneous College Thoughts)

I believe the Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde, has been my favorite thus far. I found the story humorous, and the characters realistic. Miss Serensky prophesized, “this is going to be IT for us, I really do think so”. Well this “is IT”, in more ways than one. I do think as a class we really got into it and understood it, but it also acted as our last book of our High school careers and our first book out loud. I thought to myself from the start, “we are going to be very good friends” (23). And that love for the book did not turn to hate at any point, as it did for The Namesake and many of the others. I also did learn a bit about “The Vital Importance of being Ernest” (54). Not really… nor did any of the characters! But I guess all of us can identify with the white lying that takes place, or “Bunburrying”, throughout the play (38). What I did love, in all honesty, was the theatrical side of it, seeing how people portrayed characters and how they did with cold readings. I hope the A.P. prompt applies to this book in a somewhat manageable manner! HAHAHAHA Look below!

Ladies and Gentlemen, Your Top Ten!

1. Speaking in front of the school as a “Poetry Out Loud” finalist my sophomore year! Even though I didn’t win it, or go any further in the competition, speaking acted as, “simply something to put on” my resume for college applications (Lahiri 29).

2. Receiving my first A on an A.P. English 11 assignment. I thought no way possible for me to get A’s on assignments. I normally get back essays and such and, “frown; as usual, there’s something missing” (Lahiri 1).

3. Having Mr. Immarino come into a class to tell me I was a “Student of the Semester”. Well. I guess that changed my perspective on teachers, “they aren’t monsters” (Kesey 59).

4. Opening up my acceptance letter to Syracuse University, I will never forget that moment! It felt like dreaming, I was me, in the dream, and then again kind of like I wasn’t me-like I was somebody else that looked like me (Kesey 112).

5. Listening to Mr. Salyers speak about Africa…every single day. Inspiring, but also really heart breaking that “This world…belongs to the strong”, when so many people remain so weak all around the world (Kesey 64). I must say however, I am nervous going into an A.P. test that focuses on America…not Africa.

6. Making the Blog Banter for my first time. Although I must confess, it was a letdown when I made it for my pictures and not my actual writing. but still I made it, “I call that business” (Wilde 3).

7. Facing Thomas in the note card, character debate for Everything Matters. I mean really, “I should just k-k-kill myself” (Kesey 68).

8. Getting asked to join the “Super Intendent’s Advisory Committee”. I thought to myself, “That wouldn’t at all be a bad thing” (Wilde 6).

9. Finishing my very first Data Sheet in A.P. English class. After working nonstop on the homework for days I just sat by the computer, “eyes filling with tears.”I cannot”” do this I repeated (Lahiri 6)! The pain did subside eventually though, and putting that book of a project on Ms. Serensky’s desk felt so rewarding!

10. Watching “Cane Toads” in A.P. Environmental Science. That movie was just plain old strange. I guess the focus was on invasive species. These Cane Toads completely took over towns, with graphs and scientific projections the narrator explained, “What could happen to them someday” (Kesey 18).

For Our Extremely Necessary However Hated Daily Dose of POETRY

Poem: sestina

Book: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Well although I HATE poetry papers with all of my heart, I do love poetry! My favorite of the bunch I honestly will have to say was “Sestina” by Elizabeth Bishop. I’m not just saying that because it came up on the multiple choice test we took. I especially remember the poem because of the many different ways few people interpreted it. First off, the almanac and marvelous stone that randomly speak to each other add so much craziness to an altogether plain and domestic scene. I mean, “there’s something strange about a place where” objects predict things and grandparents cry (49)! The speaker manages to make this child seem strange, when really the child only, “acts like a child” (34). I also can relate to the grandmother. I never want my cousins, or the little kids I babysit, to know when I am sad. Any time I cry it either started with laughing or ends with someone making me laugh in order to feel better. Its like sometimes I forget, “what laughter can do” (95). Laughter can brighten up anyone’s day! I love all of the little things about the poem as well, the repetition of “tears”, the personification, and metaphors. Sestina makes for a great, short, poem!

A Good Chat and A Long Lasting Sucker

I walked into class thinking we once again would have a long, stressful, graded discussion. Well I can definitely say that “It’s not what I thought it would be” (Lahiri 252). I walked into not a semi circle but a full, closed, circle of desks. Ms. Serensky had us take a seat, and then she had a seat among us. She passed out lollipops! Ms. Serensky giving us suckers? This was all so crazy, we didn’t have to get an A on some crazy assignment, no favorites, just candy for all! She slowly and delicately approached the topic of herself, or more specifically why she is the way she is. She started off by explaining how “This world…belongs to the strong”, and how for the longest time she wasn’t a strong student or writer (Kesey 32). Various teachers influenced her writing skills, but one college professor in particular pushed her to a sense of accomplishment. As I sat there listening, I imagined the whole situation, I couldn’t help but compare it to me in her class. Every day she pushes me creatively, technically, and personally. She described her frustration, determination, and the hundreds of papers it took to even get a glimpse of recognition. Ms. Serensky admitted “I am very sorry for all the trouble I have given you”, but that it all had an eventual that we would someday learn to appreciate (Wilde 28)! What an idea, up until then I cannot say I thought I believed Miss Serensky to care too much about us as individuals. But hearing that she cannot watch us get papers back because she can see the disappointment, or how she genuinely enjoys reading our blogs because it gives us insight into our actual lives and personalities. I hate all of the different relationships I have in life. There’s family, friends, teachers, coaches, youth groups, camp buddies, etc, and sometimes I can feel like I am living multiple lives. But during this one English class, I didn’t sense any competition or anxiety; we were all just people sitting in a circle with other people. So thank you so much to Ms. Serensky for timing that day out so perfectly and really bringing yourself down to our level. It has gone down as my most impacting and favorite day of A.P. English 12 thus far!

Shutting Down The System-Internally

Confidential

The following notes I have taken down personally throughout private patient therapy sessions with Mr. Ashoke Ganguli

-Dr. Spivey

First session-

Doctor: Hello there Ashoke, I am Doctor Spivey, the primary overseer of this mental facility. Nice to meet you, now I see here on what Nurse Ratched has given me, you were just admitted this morning, is that correct?

Ashoke: Yes

Doctor: Alright well just a few essential questions to start off with. First of all, I was wondering if you’ve had any previous psychiatric history. Any analysis, any time spent in and other institutions? (46).

Ashoke: No

Doctor: Okay and tell me about your family, any children?

Ashoke:”No. A mother and father and six siblings. I am the eldest” (16).

Doctor: Grand! Well could you explain how you ended up here? You seem perfectly sane to me, Mr. Ganguli.

Ashoke: To be completely honest Doctor, I am here to help out a friend. I moved to America a few years ago from India. Very shortly after my arrival I met a Mr. McMurphy, do you know him?

Doctor: Oh yes, he’s a good friend…I mean (cough). Long time patient here, that boy, causes quite a ruckus on the ward.

Ashoke: Okay well, he helped me and my family out. He introduced us to people, told us what foods to put together things of that matter. Then all the sudden I hear he’s in a “mental institution”. It made me nervous so I wrote him. He wrote back saying he neaded a favor. This woman you speak of “Nurse Ratched” has made his life a living hell. Mac told me he needed me to get in here that taking care of this woman was a two man job.

Doctor: Excuse me, “I’d like to interrupt a moment if I might”, you do know I work closely with Nurse Ratched (108)?

Ashoke: He told me you would say this. I know there’s a part of you that wants to get rid of her though. I’m thinking this two man job could take a third force-internal. You would be perfect for the job. If you say no Doctor, I will respectfully have to deny this conversation happened, and carry out the plan with McMurphy. Do realize how much fun this could be, what else is there to do? I mean I’m gonna get real weird with it, play some mind games, really shut this woman up. What do you think?

Doctor: Oh no Ashoke, I am in, “why I’ve got a million ideas…” (109).

The Attack of Burberry...Glasses

From the mangled thoughts of Chief Bromden

It is awful as soon as I enter through the door! In the room, A.P. English discussion appears on the board with calculated scores to aim for. The chairs have been placed in a semi circle…so that everyone stares at each other. I’m never much of a talker, even when I really am passionate about a topic, so I had gone in to this Ms. Serensky and tried to work something out for participation points. She said “figure it out” and left it up to me to either reach for the grade or take a zero. So here I am my first day in class, silent, “they think I’m deaf and dumb. Everybody does” (3). The book they discuss, Incidents in the Life of A Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, bores me. Not only that, but these kids tear her character apart piece by piece, until she is a pile of paper shrills that lay on the floor in the center of the circle. I sometimes think they will tear me apart into paper shreds. Thomas Donley, who resembles wears glasses “just because”, doesn’t know I am onto his devious ways. Nobody wears glasses for fun, in those lenses; Thomas can see an entirely different universe. He can seek out the fear in me with his x-ray vision, and communicates with Ms. Serensky’s mind to know what she will say before she says it. I notice this today for the first time, I can tell by the way he looks through the lenses and then tilts them down and looks from above them. As the discussion goes on, and my points reach the negatives, I become more and more afraid. If one person senses my fear, the entire pack will approach me. I make lens contact with Thomas, “I try to keep from getting scared, try to keep my thoughts off someplace else” I think of Ms. Ashkettle’s class and the fun carefree freshmen reading I loved (6). I sink slowly into my chair, deeper and deeper. I sink so deep, I think people will begin to wonder where I have gone. The bell rings. My heart begins to race. I leave class with no participation points. Everyone thinks I am deaf. Thomas analyses my thoughts through his Burberry glasses. Ms. Serensky glides by with no made eye contact. I have failed the discussion and my fellow countrymen. I want to tell someone of the horror, but how will they reply? I will tell them, “You think this is too horrible to have really happened, this is too awful to be the truth! …It is the truth even if it didn’t happen” (8). Until tomorrow’s discussion.

McMurphy Makes a Come Back on C.C. Talk

McMURPHY

VERSUS

SERENSKY

[(The following is an interview between I and a Mr. McMurphy. McMurphy has had a very interesting and adventurous life however; he seems to talk of only one thing, his A.P. English 11 class. His distinctive classmates and teacher made for an altogether different experience. Here is what he had to say:)]

Carly: So McMurphy, I can call you McMurphy right? Considering your experience with a fair share of loons, who was the craziest?

McMurphy: Easy Shmeasy there were a few psychos on the ward, Nurse Ratched topped them. The craziest though, brings me back to my high school days. A group actually, the classmates in my A.P. English 11 class. You see I was a transfer student and when I moved into a new school my Junior year, all I heard was how crazy and cult like the A.P. English classes were. I decided to find out for myself. So I went to one of those classes, and those dang kids had me fooled. I even told them, “you boys don’t look so crazy to me” (19). It was all mind games though…time and mind games, they were the craziest.

Carly: So out of all the Acutes, Chronics, and staff you came across at the Ward, none lived up to those kids? Wow they must have had a destructive leading force…tell me about the teacher!

McMurphy: Well for a long time I have been “accustomed to being to being top man”, but in comes this woman named Bobbie something or other who thinks she’s gonna stomp all over my pride (21). I put up a good fight but for a long time but she had all these mind tricks in hand. She would have us do homework for one reason, but really it was for another, she had us relate to invincible fictitious characters and then she would clobber us down with hours of writing. I couldn’t figure her out enough to mess back.

Carly: Writing, homework, sounds like a normal teacher to me…

McMurphy: No No No! That’s just it, after class me and the other kids would go complain and explain to our other teachers how she was awful. They would respond by mocking us, even defending her intent. So eventually all of us were the crazy ones.

Carly: Well…did you ever try to play her game of manipulation?

McMurphy: Yeah but “she was plenty willing” to play right on back…and better (45).

Carly: Alright well calm down! We actually have a surprise for you today. Audience please welcome to the stage the only Bobbie Jo Serensky.

(Screams, clapping….tears. McMurphy runs off stage)

(Serensky snickers repeating “simultaneous disappointment)