Meaningful Pictures

    When discussing photography in class, I knew that the selfie would rear its ugly head into this conversation. Personally, I don't get the whole fascination. The only reason I have ever taken a selfie is for the ACT Registration because I didn't want to go through the effort in asking another person or looking for a picture. It really hinders the potential of a picture. A photograph can express how you view the world and truly show some unique perspective or something beautiful. When taking a picture, you should take time to set it up and treat it like a work of art. Instead, teenagers are using Snapchats to send each other pics of their middle fingers. (I saw a girl do this in class for the entire 2nd Semester- No joke) Pictures and Video, for the most part, give us an accurate representation of what happened in an event and really helps to set the scene. This is especially prevalent in the news, where pictures help to truly reveal what happened and what the effects are. A few weeks ago, I had the unique displeasure in watching a North Korean Newscast(In English of course) void of all pictures. It was just a guy yelling at me and I didn't really get anything from it. The only reason I could get any information was because the BBC set the context for me. Contrast this with the various blogs from North Korea showing pictures of empty hotels that are filled with food. They convey the unequal distribution of wealth and North Korea's manipulative government much better than a simple blurb of text. Here are some pics that I am pretty proud of.

Way too interesting

    When talking about the ACT, people often try to console teenagers by saying that the reading passages are selected because the test writers believe that these topics interest us. After taking the ACT, I think that these passages may in fact be too interesting for us to read. The Discussion about the Bessemer and open-hearth methods for producing steel was absolutely riveting. Colvin and Juthe deserve a Pulitzer, a Cadlecott, and a Newbery. My first reaction to reading this piece was that I am not worthy to read this. It was simply beautiful. The eloquent metaphor "The action is exactly similar to what happens in a firebox under a forced draft," simply tugs at my heart strings. If the ACT cannot read bubble 12 of the ACT reading section due to the tear stain, blame this metaphor. Every high-school student knows exactly what happens in a firebox under a forced draft so we completely understand this metaphor and can relate to passion that these authors have for the elegant process of "charging molten pig iron into a huge, brick-lined pot called the Bessemer converter." Additionally, the connotation of the word "pig" implies bacon which is often cooked on a stainless steel pan. Whoa. At this point, I had to take a five-minute break because the author of this piece melted my brain like molten pig iron. I had plenty of time because 35 minutes is a really long time for one section of a test. No one every complains about the ACT time limit. I came back from my break refreshed but was unprepared for the next awe-inspiring piece-A little girl's magical journey with her cow. At first she is playing with her cow but she looses Bessie in the labyrinth of a prairie. We feel her suffering and agony as the 30 seconds it takes for her to spot her camouflaged and compact black-and-white spotted behemoth of an animal seem to go on forever. The relief and joy I felt when this girl, whose name is way too important for me to remember, is similar to the joy that I find when I find a paper clip on the floor. It was not only beautiful. It was cathartic. At this point, I was too emotional overwhelmed to continue taking the test. The test that could possible determine my future was not as important as my desire to convey my emotional turmoil due to the emotional roller coaster as a result of the ACT reading. It is not right to make these passages so beautiful and interesting. The passages must be checked in order to make sure that they don't improperly affect the students psyche as these cathartic passages may cause students to break down with emotion and fail the ACT. 

Stagnation

    In Chet Raymo's piece, "A Measure of Restraint," he depicts truly how dangerous progress can be. Using the example Marie Curie's discovery of Radium, he illustrates the detrimental effects of scientific inquiry. The discovery of Radium opened up a whole new world in chemistry both good and bad. With radiation, we can now treat cancer but radiation is so dangerous that we could kill also kill ourselves. Adrienne Rich eloquently described Marie Curie's death by radiation as the result of wounds which "came from the same source as her power." Raymo's tone remains caution throughout and with his thesis, "The unexamined quest for knowledge is hemmed with peril," advises his audience to remain vigilant while on its quest for knowledge. However, some people let themselves be paralyzed by the fear of progress. While Raymo describes the "immortal" long-term effects of transgenic research, we must also think about what we could accomplish. The bio-luminescent gene that was transplanted into a tobacco plant could potentially be used to identify and target cancer, the second leading cause of death in the U.S. By carefully continuing to research this field we could conquer many diseases. Furthermore, it is imperative that we continue to progress because staying stagnant is much worse than the side effects of progress. In G.B.B.E., we learned about the Red Queen Hypothesis which states that we must evolve in order to survive. At first it seemed quite strange, but as we evolve everything else does as well. In order to maintain our position at the top of the food change, humans must continue to advance. Looking at the picture below, the Red Queen must continue to run faster and faster or "evolve" in order to stay in the same position. In order to survive, we must develop new vaccines to kill mutating viruses. In order to survive, we must tame the harsh, variable environments around us. While the risk of progress is great, the risk of stagnation is much greater.

Challenge Accepted

      Once upon a time, Children were forced to work in deplorable conditions, while everyone else fell "asleep", unaware of this injustice. Children still could be working today, if not for the efforts of Florence Kelley to reform the lax labor laws from the Gilded Age. Kelley utilized a strong rhetoric and logos to convince her audience that granting women suffrage was the only way to end the injustice. Florence Kelley depicts the children that are forced to work as Jesus-like figures: pure and innocent. Kelley illustrates the pain that little, innocent boys and girls ",just tall enough to reach the bobbins," had to endure and contrasts this with the evil "deafening " mills that they have to work in. Additionally, Kelley's strong diction reveals the disgusting evil of child labor. The oxymoron "Pitiful Privilege" to point out that the children are the last ones to benefit as they are robbed of their childhood; the free spirit telling them to dream of pink elephants and cotton candy is lost as children become "breadwinners." War diction such as "enlist," "freeing," and "toil" effectively characterize the movement to free children as a crusade and implores the National American Woman Suffrage Association in Philadelphia to enfranchise the mothers of these poor children in order to free them. 

The ACT

        When reading Virginia Woolf's "Death of A Moth," I couldn't help but think of the ACT, which sucks. It might be due to the fact that the ACT is this Tuesday or that my Mom has been bugging me about it everyday. Woolf's message reminds me a lot of how these standardized tests work. Like the moth, you can really only put your best effort forward and hope for the best. There is no cheat sheet, there is no list of answers. The moth couldn't control the conditions that it was born in, like most of us can't control the questions on the test. The moth is limited by the room that it inhabited. The walls prevent it from leaving and exploring the free world but the windows taunt the moth by showing it the unattainable. In this case, the unattainable represents the iconic 36 that most of us won't be able to reach. We are also confined by walls but in this case that is our scoring potential. All of us can't be perfect scorers and are limited by our own intelligence and test taking skills. Personally, I find it hard to focus for the duration of the test. I love that the SAT is divided into short sections, but the ACT is just painful to take. Despite these obstacles, we try anyways just like the little "insignificant" moth.

Guys, Good luck on the ACT, SAT, AP Exams, and any other standardized test that you may have to endure.