Emily's Weblog

          Yesterday, my mother told me she had a surprise for me.  She’d bought tickets for a play that night.  This was a surprise.  For one thing, my mom isn’t a huge theatre person, and for another—when was the last time you heard of someone going to a play?  These days, we seem to like movies—they’re faster after all, and cheaper, and you can whisper and text in the theatre without inspiring the hatred of everyone around you.  But I’ve always liked plays; they feel more personal and intimate.  In theatre, more seems to be at stake.  After all, this wasn’t a production pre-processed in a studio under a million dollar budget where edits and cuts could be made at leisure.  In a play, messing up is obvious, sometimes painfully obvious, and I liked that.  The actors get to speak louder than special effects, and staging is functional and clever instead of gaudy and overblown.  The subtlety is refreshing.

          Anyway, the play we saw was called Morisot Reclining, and it told the love story of Impressionist painters Eduard Manet and Berthe Morisot.  It was a mostly factual account with a few details out of order or exaggerated for the sake of great story-telling—which made the play itself Impressionistic, in a way—and the set made great use of a large white canvas in the background by projecting famous paintings by the two on its surface.  Let me make a confession before I share what I thought of the play:  I love the Impressionists.  I really do. They’re my favourite; everything they did was so radical and progressive.  Hell, I want to be an Impressionist. There. Now that it’s obvious I’m biased, let me share what I thought.

           The story was simple but powerful:  Manet and Morisot met as painters in the Louvre at a time when Manet had already exhibited several controversial works and Morisot was still a student.  Impressed by her talent (and probably something else as well), Manet urged Morisot to model for him, which she did.  The two became great friends despite passionate arguments and found solace in their mutual love of art and frustration with 19th century society.  By the end of his life, Eduard Manet painted twelve portraits of Berthe Morisot, yet both artists married other people and never had an open romantic relationship with one another.  The play showed acutely the suffering both felt as they realized they couldn’t be together—although art historians don’t agree on whether the two ever had feelings for one another, it seems obvious that no one paints twelve pictures of someone he doesn’t care about, nor does one pose for countless hours just to help an artist-colleague.  And if one examines the portraits themselves, it’s easy enough to tell how Manet felt for Morisot:  in many, she stares directly at the viewer, bold and daring as women of her time were not supposed to be.  The actors did a brilliant job of portraying these famous artists in a relatable way—I felt like I was there watching normal people interact, not at a museum—and the whole production gave me a greater respect for theatre.

          This production reminded me of what artists can do with both a stage and a canvas:  I felt an increased respect for stage actors even as my admiration for the Impressionists ballooned.  This play showed that untold stories are lurking beneath the surface of almost every painting.  It reminded me of why I love art so much in the first place.

          Clearly, when Al Gore invented the internet he didn’t know what he was getting into.  We’ve ushered in a new era, an era of instant information and communication with few warnings and even fewer boundries.  The internet allows anyone to do what his ancestors could have only dreamed of, but at what cost?  There is a dark side to the World Wide Web, and as kids grow less cautious the dangers become more pronounced.  This new danger can most clearly be seen with social networking sites like Myspace, Facebook, and Twitter.

         The premise of such sites seems innocent enough from the outside—they are, after all, designed to help users stay connected with friends and family—but users often forget that the sites are not private.  Sure, one can make his profile private, but google searches can still unearth negative information.  The problem with social networking sites is that teenagers are forgetting about caution and posting whatever they want about themselves with reckless abandon.  From everything from their full names to their cell phone  to “I was so drunk last night,” teenagers are taking information that should be private and presenting it to the entire world. 

         So, what is the point?  Why do teenagers feel the need to confess every detail of their lives to potentially millions of people?  Part of the urge may stem from the kind of society we live in.  From our celebrity-obsessed culture to our drive to be noticed, we are an attention-addicted youth in an attention-starved society.  It makes sense that someone would publish every detail of her life if she thought it would generate attention and make others care.  Still, this does not make such behaviour prudent or wise.  In fact, it’s dangerous—as proved by cases of assult and kidnappings traced back to Myspace or Facebook.

        To be safe, students always need to think twice about the information posted on the internet.  Some details, like a first name, are probably not an issue, but something personal like an address or a phone number could prove dangerous.  Anything that allows strangers to trace the poster should be avoided.  Teenagers should also be careful about posting pictures or stories that make them look bad:  anything from personal stories to profanity can be accessed by a Google search.  Basically, prudence is wise, and too little information is better than too little.  The best advice I can give?  If you wouldn’t want your mother reading it, you probably shouldn’t be posting it.

         Sometimes I worry that our society’s people are slowing losing the ability to communicate that which really matters to one another.  With text-messaging, email, and sites like Myspace and Facebook, there’s less of a need to talk in person, and I worry that this is distancing us from our friends and family.  I’ve always been a big believer in communication—my mom is a therapist; I learned about sharing feelings early on—and I think that sitting down and talking to someone can solve almost any problem.  The problem is that, lately, sitting down and talking seems to be the last thing anyone wants to do.  I think it was Hemingway who said only the individual can know his own innermost thoughts and feelings, and I believe that this is true.  Perhaps we are all too complicated, on the inside, to ever be completely known by one person, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t share at least a little piece of us.  Every person is a complex web of thoughts and opinions and hurt feelings and little moments of happiness, but if one doesn’t share these things then no one will have a hope of understanding him.  I have seen so many great friendships broken up this way—a twinge of a misunderstanding morphed into a vast, swollen problem, all because those involved didn’t simply sit down and say, “We need to talk.”  One of my friends completely severed her relationship with one of her best friends because neither of them was willing to reach out and share her feelings.  One day they had an argument, the next they didn’t say a word to each other.  After that every day was the same: silence.  And so the friendship ended.

          How can people let things like this happen?  Why must we be so stubborn, to let such little matters escalate until the drama obscures common sense?  Why can’t we just apologize, suck it up when we do something wrong, and move on?  Pride is not worth the cost of a friendship.  Yesterday I had to apologize to some very good friends of mine because I had made a mistake, or rather, a string of mistakes, or rather, I had been insensitive.  I had been insensitive for quite a long time.  When my friend finally told me why things had been weird between some of us, I didn’t get defensive, I just apologized and told her I would try to do better.  We had a bit of a heart-to-heart—it was lame but it was necessary.  When I got home that night, I just thanked my mom for drilling the need to communicate into my head.  Sometimes, even close friends can feel like there’s a rough stone wall between them—emotional distance is much more potent than physical distance, but luckily it can be bridged with only a few words.  A few honest words.  I hope that I can always remember that words, when chosen wisely and honestly, are the most meaningful things in the world.  Without them, we would have no relationships, no happiness, no life.  Let’s never forget to talk to one another.

         There comes a point when anyone, even the most resourceful time manager or the most driven student, needs to throw up his or her hands and say, “Okay, too much; I’m done.”  Everyone knows that junior year is supposed to be a stressful one, but with the drudgery of everyday school work and extra-curricular activities plus looming AP tests and college applications, junior year can be more than stressful—it can be overwhelming.  What is one supposed to do when a mile-long list of projects, assignments, and goals pile up to the point that there seems to be no way out?  It’s so tempting to simply check out and give up, but my gut feeling always tells me that that isn’t the solution—after all, assignments would still accumulate, and the situation would only escalate.  So, whenever I’ve been too stressed to function in the past, I have tried to do something productive, like work out or paint.  Yesterday, though, I decided that these strategies just weren’t working for me right now.  Exercising just felt like more work, albeit in a different form, and painting made my stress even worse—whenever I tried to paint something, it didn’t turn out the way I wished, and so I would put it away, frustrated, and add its completion as yet another item on my to-do list.  What was the point of getting away from work by adding more work, even if it was work I enjoyed?  I no longer wanted to better myself or push myself; I was, to put it bluntly, sick of being productive. 

          All of these feelings I shared with one of my friends as were were driving home from going out to lunch.  She patiently listened to my complaining, then said that she had an idea to cure my stress.  The best way to feel refreshed, she said, was to spend some quality time doing nothing.  So, we pulled in to my driveway but didn’t get out of the car; instead, we opened the sunroof, turned on some music, and put the backs of our seats down.  Then, we just lay there.  We talked about random things but not about projects and deadlines; we stuck our feet out of the sunroof and changed the music if a song was bad.  For almost thirty minutes we sat there, not being productive at all and enjoying every second of it.  When we finally went into my house, I noticed that my stress had disappeared.  

          Every once in a while, everyone needs to make the conscious decision to waste time; it clears the head and puts things into perspective.  I think that, if we students weren’t always preoccupied with using our time well and being perfect, if we were willing to populate our days with a little inactivity, that we would be happier, more chilled-out people.

         This is actually the blog topic for next week, but the idea of same-gender classrooms was coincidentally something I was thinking about a few days ago, so I thought that now would be a good time to address it.  My cousin Meghan was in town last week, and she goes to an all-girls Catholic high school.  I couldn’t even imagine going to school with only girls (the drama! The competition!) so I was giving her all the sympathy I could when she looked at me and said, “You know, it’s actually not that bad.”

         Not that bad?  How can going to school with only half of the population be a good thing?   Yet, as we talked about what going to St. Mary’s (yes, that’s actually the name) was like, I found that some aspects weren’t as bad as I thought.  For Meg, the worst parts of her high school were wearing uniforms and not being able to meet guys.  The uniforms are a separate issue entirely, but I had to sympathize with her on the not meeting guys thing.  If you go to an all girl’s school, the only male in the entire building is probably the subtly pervy gym teacher, and forget finding anyone to go to prom or homecoming with.  This, obviously, would be the biggest downside of an all-girl’s high school.  The surprising thing Meghan had to say about her school was that, since it’s only girls, the students were much more focused on academics and much more competitive–in a good way.  Apparently, without the stress of having boys around them all the time, girls were free to say what they wanted and could answer questions without worrying about how they looked or whether they were right. 

         After thinking about what Meg had to say and reading our blog topic, I realised that having certain classes with only one gender in a co-ed school might be the best of both worlds.  For one thing, because the school would be mixed, there wouldn’t be any worries about not getting to interact with guys–girls could still date and have guy friends–but on the other hand, it would be a chance for girls to say whatever they wanted and to take a break from guy-related drama and stress.  I’m not saying this is every girl, but–and I’ve seen it happen–some girls get really timid or even dumb themselves down to impress guys, and having a class with only girls would give them a chance to see what they were really capable of.  There would be no ridiculous “Oh…I don’t know” whenever a teacher asked a question for fear of appearing “too smart,” but we wouldn’t have to separate girls and guys completely.  After all, our world has both women and men in it–both genders need to grow up knowing how to coexist with the other, and life is much for fun that way.  I’m not saying segregate boys and girls–but an all-girl or all-boy class every once in a while would be an interesting thing to try.

            There’s no doubt about it; our generation is that of computers. No other group of people has grown up as dependent on these little machines as we have. We use them for communication, for information, for shopping, for entertainment—it’s no wonder that high school students today can scarcly imagine life without an iMac or Windows. Ten years ago, one could get by in school and work without having internet access at home; now, those people are in the vast minority and have to struggle alongside a much more computer-savvy population. As computers continue to pervade every aspect of our lives, it is only natural that they take on a position in education and literacy. These days, one can extend his ideas to millions by writing his thoughts on a blog; before, the only way to get even close to that kind of exposure was to hope to be published in a magazine or newspaper. The effect is that putting one’s writing out there is easy—all it takes is the right kind of marketing strategy. It is obvious that this new idea of “computer literacy” is here to stay—but what implications does it have for society?

            If an uneducated, untrained person can reach millions of people from a blog just as well as a well-known author can, does that lower our standards on writing? Computer literacy is making it easier to be heard—it’s no longer as necessary to get a publicist or an agent since all one really needs is a laptop. In a way, this is a good thing—writing becomes less of an acitvity for the elite and more of a path to global communication and understanding. It could be that, since it’s now so easy to publish one’s thoughts, people will be eager to improve their writing in order to get it out to the public. This is the most optimistic view of future computer literacy, and one that I like to envision, that of people from different continents and of all ages sharing their ideas and opinions in an educated, enlightened way. I think, if we play our cards right, that we can have a smarter and more open-minded population through the use of computers. We could respect and build on the writing of the past while forging a new path, a global one with many different perspectives.

            Then, there is a darker side to the computer and its role in writing. If absolutely anyone can publish his thoughts for the entire world to see and if everyone does so, it’s only natural that the quality of writing floating out there on the internet will be poorer in quality than that of published, printed material. After all, the people posting on blogs in every corner of the world don’t have editors hounding them about subject-verb agreement and ending sentences in prepositions—their writing quality can suffer and noone would notice. What, then, will happen if the writing of the masses becomes the standard? Will we forget all about the rules (I hate to call them rules, the conventions of writing, but I can think of no better word) and simply write, write, write, until our ideas are incoherant due to bad grammar and spelling and punctuation? Do not think I’m some uptight grammar teacher, I groan and complain about the dryness of learning proper English as much as anyone else, but one must admit that without some guidelines there is nothing to ensure that English stays, well…right. Correct. We can’t let the quality of our language (and it really is a good language) deteriorate because of millions of people are writing drivel and spelling things wrong and forgetting their commas. We just can’t.  

            So, I guess that English is at an impasse. Being the international tongue, the language that more people learn than any other, it will be the one that either soars or sinks when computers have their say in communication. On one hand, computer literacy could give rise to a new, educated, international population that shares ideas on a global scale. On the other hand, the sheer amount of bad writing that is bound to surface could become the standard, and English could be degraded to a mere parody of itself, a fusion between Shakespeare and text messaging. Where will my generation take English next, to rebirth or to ruin? It truly is up to us.

‘Cause it’s easier to find them this way.  Plus, since we do so many independent writings, it’s better to have them out in the open. I’ll post everything I’ve done so far in one post, and from there do one post per writing.

Bleh…grades. Sometimes I wonder if we are our grades. Parents care about them. Colleges care about them. We care about them, sometimes to the extent that a B could make us feel like a failure or hurt our self-worth. But why do they have to matter so much?

No matter how hard a student works in a class, no matter how much they actually learn and understand by the end of the school year, a poor job on a project or test is enough to push an A down to a B, a B to a C, or, in some cases, a D to an F. How can anyone expect a tiny little letter to give an accurate report of how much a student learned? If someone comes into Spanish I as a fluent speaker, he won’t learn anything at all, but he’ll definitely get an A. On the other end, a student with a learning disability might put in an enormous amount of effort into the class and learn a lot about the material, but still only pull out a C.

Good grades are given to certain types of learners: most commonly, those who can sit still and memorize information for a test. I don’t know about anyone else out there, but in some classes (Chemistry? Biology? Any science class I’ve ever had?) I’ve worked insanely hard to memorize material and do well on the exams, only to forget it weeks later. What’s the point of spending 8+ hours in school each day if the only purpose is to process material through one’s head, like a factory? That’s not enjoyable; that’s not even effective. It’s no wonder kids don’t care about school with a grading system like this – the black and white, no-room-for-error technique doesn’t even accurately convey progress and achievement.

In a perfect world, we wouldn’t even have grades, but instead teachers that were willing to write up detailed and personalized reports of how a student grew and improved, what his or her strengths were, and what he or she needed more work on. I’m sure some teachers would be willing to do this, but colleges wouldn’t be willing to read them. What university that gets tens of thousands of applicants a year would be cool with sitting down and analyzing page after page of personalized reports? It would be ridiculous.

Still, that doesn’t mean that we can’t be idealistic and wish for a system without the inflexibility of grades. It would be great to have a more introspective, personalized way of learning that focused more on discovery and progress. In a society of time-pressed and lazy people, however, cold, clear-cut letters are the easiest way (if not the most innacurate) to measure achievement. And while most teachers and students would likely be fine with an alternative learning style, administrations and colleges wouldn’t. Unfortunately, seeing that most of us want to go to college, we’re going to have to pander to their wants.

…I think that was more that four hundered words. Dang.

First, here is the website that I got my information from: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/business/21qanda.html?ref=business

I think the bailout plan is a difficult thing for the American people to think about because it is a necessary but completely unpleasant decision.

Here is a problem created by big business and rich, risk-taking citizens, not the middle class. Had banks been more cautious and certain investors less reckless, we might not find ourselves in this position. Here we are, though, teetering on the edge of economic downfall because of miscalculated decisions – and the average taxpayers are whom America is depending on for its rescue. It’s only natural that people feel cheated, even furious – but is there anything we can do? Though 700 billion is an enormous amount of money, we may just need to wince and get on with our lives. After all, if major mortgage and banking companies are forced to close down, the American economy might face a downfall rivaled by the Great Depression, and no one wants that. The only problem is that no one knows for sure what the consequences of doing nothing would be. Though America could have an economic disaster, there is a chance nothing could happen at all. 700 billion is a lot of money to pay on a prediction, and it will weigh heavily on taxpayers’ wallets, which is why it is such a controversial bill. However, in this case, it may be better to assume the worst would happen and pass the bill. Having less money every month is still preferable to not having any at all.