Caucasia = Frustrating

So I'm basically struggling way too much with this book. No, I'm not saying I hate it like a majority of the class does. I merely hate how much we're told to read in such a short period of time.

I'll admit I'm behind in the reading and I have no idea when I'm going to catch up.

At the moment the book seems to be going nowhere really special. I don't think it's bad. I just think there are more fascinating books we could have picked for the subject of race and judgment. But that's just my opinion.

I guess I'll just have to put up with it for the next few days.

Cherry Bomb!

I really enjoyed giving my presentation for the cool writing assignment. I've known the song "Cherry Bomb" by The Runaways for quite some time now. The song had always inspired me to go for what I believe in. I can't even imagine how many times I've played it whenever I'm in the mood to fight of what is right.

The song, in my opinion, can be an inspiration to anyone who just pays attention to the lyrics. Women, especially women like Jean Kilbourne, should tip their hats off to The Runaways. After all, they were the first girls to say through the power of music that the female race kicks ass and any man that disrespects a girl so poorly deserves a swift kick in the $&%#s!

Even men can find this song to be inspirational. The rules of life are simple. Take a chance. Follow your goals. And break down any walls that get in your way.

The Runaways put up with it all: girls can't rock. "Girls are only good at making their men a sandwich or satisfying them in the bedroom. Girls should just shut up, put on their sunflower dresses, and save the rock scene for the boys." They were rejected and ridiculed and still these girls fought on because they wanted to do the thing they loved most: ROCK OUT LOUD!

So you think it's tough? Are you going to let people keep pushing you down until you stop trying to get up? Or are you going to get in some faces and start pushing back?

Props to The Runaways.

Killing Us Softly

I find it really interesting that we started this brief unit on how women are depicted in advertising only a short while after my cool writing presentation. All my thoughts that The Runaways had inspired me to think of have returned after watching this video.

I found maybe 95% of the video to be quite inspiring and mind-opening to the subject of sexism. The other 5% of the video seemed to be a little too preachy about feminism. By that, I mean at least two of the advertisements shown made me think this is just another way women try to sound like the only victims of society and men are just evil.

But mostly, I enjoyed this presentation. Even as a member of the male community, I do have to give women their props for standing up for what they think is right. No specific race or gender should have to be depicted as objects. No one should have to be put on this planet just so they can satisfy others.

The whole segment on how women and men are portrayed through modeling wasn't 100% original, but it was 100% realistic. No one looks that perfect all the time. And anyone who thinks that is how you reach ultimate happiness, get ready to be disappointed.

My Monologue

So I basically can't say I like the monologue I wrote. The reason for this is because I didn't write enough. I felt like I held back too much in some important areas. I'm not even sure if the things I said in the monologue made any sense.

The speech didn't go anywhere. There were all kinds of things I'm sure I would have loved to have Spencer (the boy that talks in the monologue) talk about. All I did was make him come off as some pissy little boy that only likes to complain about the kids around him. (Holden?)

Spencer is a fictional character from a short story I came across. I found him to be very entertaining and relatable. His snarky attitude and sarcastic wit was what made me want to have him be the speaker of the monologue.

If I could make any changes, I'd probably end up adding a lot more information about Spencer's personal life. But hey, maybe Mr. Kunkle will like it.

School Days by The Runaways

Used to be the trouble maker
Hated homework, was a sweet heartbreaker
But now I have my dream I'm so rowdy for eighteen
Never read a single book
Hated homework and the dirty looks
Now I live my life
There's a lot I seen at eighteen
School days, school days
I'm older, now what will I find
School day, school days
Starting to slip I'm losin' my mind
Used to be the wild one
Hated class only lived for fun
I'm mean an' got my schemes
At the crazy age of eighteen
Never made the honor roll
Hated rules what I was told
Now I am almost free It's a dangerous scene when you're eighteen
School days, school days
I'm older, now what will I find
School days, school days
Starting to slip I'm losin' my mind

This song is not only really BA...it expresses the teenager perfectly. Deep down, we all have those days where we just don't want to be at school and we just want to party. It's not a bad thing. Nothing is bad as long as it's fun...for me.

Holden's Experience with Sunny and Maurice

Asking a prostitue to come to your hotel room is one thing; but how do you handle being pressed up against the wall because you are being forced to pay the prostitute more money than you agreed?

Holden had quite an experience being forced to pay a woman extra money for a night that never happened. When he first met Sunny, he assumed she was nervous. But now Sunny is expressing an intereting change in dominace and confidence. She takes five more dollars out of Holden's wallet as he is being cornered by the large Maurice.

Maurice was the one that got Holden a prostitue in the first place. But Holden didn't realize until the next day that Maurice and Sunny were working together. This basically makes Maurice Sunny's pimp.

Holden didn't see that coming...

The Catcher In the Rye (So Far)

As Mr. Kunkle already knows, I've decided to annotate my copy of the book with sticky notes. I've always wanted to own my very own copy of The Catcher In the Rye and I didn't want to mark it up with a bunch of words that I'm only putting in the book for a class. So after we finish this book, I'll be able to remove all the sticky notes and the book will be free of vandalism.

Back to the book, I'm enjoying it. Though the main character's personality isn't my favorite, J.D. Salinger has a special skill of keeping the reader engaged in the story. Nothing too jaw-dropping has happened in the book yet, but I'm still intrigued by the storyline.

Holden is definitely a complex character. Under all the crude remarks about other people and why his life is so terrible, you can see that there is something wrong with the boy. His psychological troubles are the source of why he reads off as a haphazard character. His mental flaws are what really draws you in as a reader. Sometimes you think his cynical attitude can be entertaining. Other times you question if the boy belongs in a room with spongy walls. Either way he is just a mere reflection of how we as people think. We say one thing but we mean the other. We criticize those around us, yet every now and then we dump on ourselves. We judge. We lie. We snark. Holden is just are more dramatized version of ourselves.

I'm still trying to find how this book inspired that psycho to kill John Lennon. So far the worst I think a person would want to do after reading this book would be to swear uncontrollably.

Anyway, the book is fun so far. I'm looking forward to seeing how it ends.

About Kevin Dobosenski

Kevin Dobosenski:

Senior at McFarland High School.

17.

Male.

Brown Hair.

Blue Eyes.

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LIKES TO:

Read books

Listen to classic rock

Wear clothes that are older than him

Take long car drives with friends

Sleep in his room

Hide from the normality

Talk to himself

Go places he's never been to before

Write poems based off of his imagination

Take a lot of English classes

Beat his reflection in a staring contest

Walk with his eyes closed and pretend he's somewhere only he knows exists

Have conversations with his dog

Eat chocolate

Wear a mushroom necklace

----------------------------------------------------

DOESN'T LIKE TO:

Be ordered around

Become obsessed with what's "in"

Smell like bonfire

Sit in his house with nothing to do

See his friends get treated poorly

Stand in awkward silence

Be told that being weird is a bad thing

Lose an argument

Talk to a lot of people at the same time

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I don't have a favorite book. I've read quite a handful of books in my life and fell in love with a large majority of them. But I guess I could tell you the last book I read. Go Ask Alice by an anonymous writer is a story about a teenage girl who keeps track of her life on drugs in a diary. The entire book is nothing but diary entries of the girl who gets into drugs like LSD, marijuana, speed, heroin, etc. The most intense part of the book is knowing that it is a legitimate diary written by a girl from the 1970's. The information of the diary like the names, dates and places have all been changed for the privacy of people who could've been involved in this girl's tragic story.

This is the End

Well it has finally happened...the end of AP Composition. Though I must say the first half of this class was more interesting, the entire term was quite enjoyable.

I feel like I learned a lot about the way I write and the writing styles of others. The class really showed me how to properly portray myself as a writer of all kinds of subjects.

Though all the reading and writing building up on me became a bit stressful, I became very proud of myself for overcoming all the challenges.

This class is probably going to be one of the best ways to prepare me for college. Now I look forward to taking those classes at University.

Thanks to everyone who helped build my writing skills over the terms!

:)

Art is a Dead Bunny

The piece I chose from the museum was titled "Beso" by Fred Stonehouse. The painting from 1992 is an image of a rabbit running through the forest with three arrows pierced into its body. The medium of the work is Acrylic on Panel.

Beso is Spanish for kiss. But I couldn't help but wonder why "kiss" symbolizes such a brutal image. I personally thought is was some kind of message that humans embrace the wildlife of the forest with savagery. My reason for this is because the rabbit is crying. (However I do think Fed Stonehouse added one too many tears on the rabbit's face. A few would have been fine, but it looked a little over the top.

When it comes to America, I think this piece symbolizes that Americans look out for themselves even if they have to kill to survive. My only question to the artist is why does it say "Beso"? I'm sure there's some deeper meaning to the word. In fact, I'm sure my own ideas on this picture are probably wildly off from what the artist was trying to say.

Other works this painting reminds me of is another painting in the museum. The painting is called "Fire Signs" and it is a picture of a forest burning down. It just look like another way of how humans treat nature. I'm not saying we're all a bunch of savages that can only destroy the wildlife. I'm merely saying I don't think we truly understand places like the wilderness, so we only put it to our personal benefits. I don't think the painting of the rabbit relates to anything that we have read in AP Composition. Maybe someone else could find a connection, but I personally cannot.

A Very Important Paper

The research paper is coming along okay. I still think it could be better.

When we had peer editing yesterday, I was very glad to see that another student found an "error" that I wasn't sure of when I wrote the paper. Now I know how to fix it and I'm looking forward to seeing the final draft.

I just hope I do better on it than that Great Gatsby timed writing. Curse you F. Scott Fitzgerald, your horrible book still haunts my time in AP Comp. Then again, I don't want to curse the dead, so I'll just stay unhappy with him.

:P

Choice Reading

Well I've already finished the book I'm reading. Lord of the Flies was a pretty fascinating story. I really enjoyed it.

The comparison of the book and the movie are pretty similar. In fact, if I was one of those lazy kids, I could have just watched the movie and work on the paper then. But since I'm such a saint, I put in the effort and read the darn thing.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes popular stories that are both fast reads and well developed. Oh, and I would like to point out that I knew what the "lord of the flies" was very quickly in the story.

The only thing I hated was that the main antagonist of the story didn't get killed. He was such a little ass and commanded the death of two characters. I would have been much happier if he got a giant rock dropped on him.

Kerfuffle and Crash!

A battle! A battle that makes your feathers ruffle!
A battle! A battle is quite a kerfuffle
The snollygoster’s battle cry does not stammer
For its determination braves even the ninnyhammer
The enemy laughs when we are in trouble
They act so coy with their honeyfuggle
But we have help with the swords we stole
All thanks to our friend, the bumbling jobbernowl
They use humdudgeon on every girl and boy
Until gargalesis is used by the clumsy hobbledehoy
The battle is over! The enemy has lost!
They run away in a sad, pitiful squabash


*This is what I sing. Confused? So am I.*

America is a Movie: Across the Universe

Well my presentation wasn't as well performed as I would have wanted it to be. I really don't know why it was a little hard for me to get the words I wanted to say out of my mouth. Maybe I was just focusing on one too many things while presenting.

Let the record show that "Across the Universe" is not just a movie with a bunch of Beatles songs being turned into anti-war messages. There are plenty of happier, more joyful songs added into the story. However showing the more colorful songs wouldn't have made much sense for the message I was trying to get across.

In my defense, I did show "All You Need Is Love" which everyone knows is a much more positive song. If I had more time, I would have loved to show "Strawberry Fields Forever" which is one of my favorites in the whole movie. I probably would have labeled it as a symbol of unreal pain. I might have used it as a symbol of denial, even.

Overall, "Across the Universe" is a fantastic movie that I think any Beatles fan would love to take a look at. It is a real visual treat and even though the plot isn't the greatest, it is still pretty entertaining.

Self-Reliance Sentence

On page #100 in the first big paragraph, there is a line that I wanted to use for two reasons:

The sentence is "They shed an united light on the advancing actor."

The first reason why I wanted to use this sentence was because of the mechanical error. It should be "a united light" not "an". I just found it interesting that I found an error in one of these papers. They're usually much better with avoiding typos.

The second reason why I picked this sentence was I liked the description. "They shed a unitied light" is just simple but creative choice of words. It symbolized team work and assistance. They helped the advancing actor by shedding the light onto him. Well written.

The "Great" Gatsby

Forgive me, but this blog post may offend any of you who are enjoying The Great Gatsby. I cannot stress enough how much I don't care for this book. Though I find F. Scott Fitzgerald's writing to be rather interesting, the story is dry and annoying.

The character Daisy is my main reason for not liking this book. She's annoying, dramatic, and a bit "loose" if you will. The idea of anyone falling in love with this character is beyond my knowledge.

Overall, I think my main reason why I don't like this book is because I am currently reading two other books at the same time. Does anyone else here share my stress? Mr. Kunkle isn't the only one who is assigning me thirty pages worth of reading. Of course, I'm not blaming anyone. When it comes to the other two books in my classes, I find them to be much more interesting and captivating. The Great Gatsby is just a big burden...nothing more.

Burn In Hell!

There's nothing I love more than religious people preaching about how if you don't do what they say, you'll spend an eternity burning in hell.

Jonathan Edwards, to me, is just another preacher who wants to channel fear into the minds of unsuspecting people. Luckily for him, the people of the world lived in a time where they'll believe anything you say if you use the words "Angry God" "Sinner" and the ever so popular phrase: "The fiery pits of hell!" (That phrase, to me, is more cliche than scary.) How many times do we hear statements like this? Eh, maybe Jonathan Edwards started it.

The fact of the matter is, the reading was just repetitive and annoying. I can't tell how many times I laughed at this man. If I was in the crowd when he was saying this, I would've merely said: "Why the hell should I believe one damn word you say?" Oh, I could just see the look on his face.

:)

Putting On the Mask of John Smith

All I can say is I hope I was not the only one who found masking the writing of another writer very difficult! At the same time, I found the exercise very intriguing. I have never though about trying to copy the writing style of another person.

Though I'm not a "huge" fan of my "John-Smith-Style" writing, I did have a little fun making the story.

I had to go back and read the John Smith story once again so I could truly understand how he wrote. While reflecting on the "epic" story, I contemplated how I wanted to write my version. The main ideas were simple: sound full of myself, switch from third to first to third person repeatedly, make the story sound "dangerous" and "heroic".

As I wrote, I felt like I was back in Creative Writing class. Obviously the daring tale of me traveling through the Great Wilderness (which is fictional) is completely made up. At the same time, I enjoyed writing a short story about yours truly.

Though I considered the assignment difficult, and I'll be absolutely mortified when I read it to anyone, I still found it to be a valuable writing exercise.