Artistic Voice

I applied for college last night after finishing up these two essays…I’m going to Texas State! Hopefully, at least xD, I’ll be attending Texas State University in San Marcos next fall to study Studio Art and earn a teacher’s degree. My whole life I wanted to be an English teacher, but this past year or two of writing essay after essay non-stop kind of beat the love out of me. :\ But I love art just as much, so it’s all good. This was the essay about myself that I wrote for my application.

Expression is everything. A person is who he is because he expresses himself to be that way. Without expression, thoughts would remain with their owners, ideas would never leave their creators’ minds, inventions would cease to be created, and art would not exist. Language would serve no purpose and would, therefore, become extinct. Without expression, people would be forced into isolation, unable to retrieve or accept information, feelings, or ideas from another person.

Proud Solution

I applied for college last night after finishing up these two essays…I’m going to Texas State! Hopefully, at least xD, I’ll be attending Texas State University in San Marcos next fall to study Studio Art and earn a teacher’s degree. My whole life I wanted to be an English teacher, but this past year or two of writing essay after essay non-stop kind of beat the love out of me. :\ But I love art just as much, so it’s all good. This was the essay about an issue I feel strongly about that I wrote for my application.

With the gentle rocking motion of the school bus persuading me from side to side, I began to visualize my schedule in my mind. Staring into the cloudless blue sky lit by the late afternoon sun, I planned to complete my homework the moment I got home, finish my remaining chores, and continue to work on my college applications. The slight clanking of the two flute cases clutched in my arms reminded me to leave some time to practice my instrument. After thanking the bus driver for the ride as I always did, I stepped out and began to walk home thinking that I had a busy night ahead of me and I needed to manage my time well. Continuing along the sidewalk and around the corner, I began to receive the beauty of the day. There was a clear sky above allowing the trees to gently sway in full color and inviting the birds to share their vocal talents. Gentle, warm whiffs of air brushed past my face and played with my long hair a bit as I continued my trek.

Opening Innocent Eyes

I applied for scholarships about a month ago, but I need to write a personal narrative to go with my applications. I believe it was supposed to be around 400 words long and was supposed to describe my educational goals, my aspiration, and my plans after high school/college.

Through a child’s untouched eyes, life is a different view. Colors are splattered all about, bright, vibrant, unique, and colorful. Lines run in every direction leading the eye from one interesting object to the next. To children, our planet is a wondrous sight, never a bore, and intricately beautiful, but as they grow, they gradually begin to lose this sensitive awareness. As my years have passed, my appreciation for the beauty of the world around me has developed and grown, not perished. I continue to view life through the eyes of a child, innocent, creative, and filled with wonder. With a vivid imagination, I have learned to take in my observations and add to them with my own creative style. Over the years I have relied on creativity to express my interpretation of life and to express myself. My skills have improved, my knowledge has expanded, and I have allowed my talent to shine. Art is a gift not only to the artist, but also to anyone who takes in the artist’s work, viewing his gift to the world.

Feminist Reading of “Barbie Doll”

On October 18, 2009, I was assigned to find a poem in our English textbook and analyze it using feminist criticism. I was then to read my analysis in front of the class as a presentation to help teach gender criticism.

“Barbie Doll,” a poem written by Marge Piercy in 1936, clearly delivers strong feminist views about the pressures and standards women are forced to live with. With a depressing tone, the poem describes a young girl’s life beginning with her birth and ending with her ironic death. The poem progresses and tells how the pressures of being a woman affect the girl’s life and influence her actions.

Military Difficulties

On September 19, 2009, I was assigned to write an essay as if I was applying to college. My topic was to write about a hardship in my life.

Although I do not notice or think of it often, there is something in my life, a seemingly invisible force, which is constantly affecting and changing my life, sometimes without my knowledge or without my acceptance. This force has been at work my entire life, even before I was born, and has resulted in my existence here on Earth. An active-duty member of the United States Air Force, my mother makes my life what it is, naming the government and the Armed Forces as fathers of mine. I follow orders from the Air Force just as she does.

Controlled Insanity

This was another essay I was to write about George Orwell’s novel, 1984 at the beginning of school, August 29, 2009.

“Throughout recorded time, and probably since the end of the Neolithic Age, there have been three kinds of people in the world, the High, the Middle, and the Low,” writes George Orwell in his book, 1984. From within the pages of his book, Orwell clearly demonstrates this trend by creating three distinct social classes following the upper, middle, and lower class system, the Inner Party, the Outer Party, and the proletarians, respectively. By granting each class different benefits and privileges, Oceania fosters inequality among its citizens to keep the society frozen in a moment in time, a moment they see as beneficial and progressive in their eyes. With the Inner Party cautiously defending its position, the Outer Party will forever work under its control, and the proles will always retreat to the bottom of the social pyramid.

Defacing Humanity

This was an essay I was to write about George Orwell’s novel, 1984 at the beginning of school, August 29, 2009.

A society is easiest to regulate when people are almost programmable, unable to feel or think for themselves and are completely devoted to the state. Stripped of their humanity, the people are putty in the government’s hands and have limited personal freedoms. In George Orwell’s fictional dystopian novel, 1984, Oceania enforces regulations through language, personal relationships, work, and the media that limit the Party members’ freedoms and destroy their human spirits.

School’s Out – Updates

Okay, so school just got out like three days ago for me, and summer’s ahead. I love summer.

I’ve decided that I should start using my blog again; I never really stopped, I just haven’t had the time to update it. My junior year was the most busiest school year of my life, I do believe…Oh my gosh, I can’t believe it…Anyways, summer’s here and I am really really hoping that I will have time to enjoy and relax. I doubt it, but you never know.

I just went through my entire blog and updatted every single post. There are now little lines next to introductions to posts and everything is just a touch more uniform and organized, how I like it. Going through my whole blog and reading my past…makes me miss everything so much. I miss Magic Pens, and my old blog, and I wish I had transferred over all of the comments. I missed quite a few, but I got most, so it’s okay. I also really hope that I will come to love this new blog just as much as my old and that I will get some more readers. In Magic Pens I was used to having anywhere from 5-10 readers on each post and receiving many comments and feeback. This blog barely gets 5 pageviews at all and I am left to feel so alone… :\

I plan to post some more essays I wrote over this year, make some more minor updates, and perhaps start creative writing again!

Classroom Terror or Electronic Godsend?

I continue to praise Minot High School, even through my English assignments…

This is an argumentative essay that was required to include documented research and not persuade the reader to a certain point, but to merely state a problem and a possible solution. I chose what I thought to be a simple topic: cell phone use in school.

A minute electrical device could save a life in the case of an emergency, create persistent distractions that causes a student’s grades to drop, interrupt classes with an array of annoying sounds, violate personal privacy, help keep track of time and events, and even act as a tool to cheat in school, and everyone has one in his pocket. A necessity in most people’s lives, the cellular phone contributes to modern society adding to the list of valuable tools available. Yet school boards disagree with each other on policies to regulate cell phone use in school; some argue that students should be trusted with the freedom to possess cell, while others state that the devices should never reside on school grounds. With so many teens possessing a cell phone, schools should create a fair policy to deal with the popular technology.

Individual Importance

My Saturdays have been occupied with Ready Writing UILs quite often now…I attended another UIL competition, this time at MacArthur High School on January 31, 2009. This was one of the bigger contests with a stricter competition, or so I was told by my teachers and instructors. I believe there were about 56 contestants at this Ready Writing competition, and I placed 6th. I admit this essay is the worst that I have written so far and I am really not pleased with it. I struggled with it more, and just know that it can be improved in so many ways. The topic I chose is listed followed by the essay I wrote.

“It is the art of mankind to polish the world, and everyone who works is scrubbing in some part.”
-Henry David Thoreau, The Writings of Henry David Thoreau (1906)

As time proceeds and the future becomes the past, the world is constantly changing. Mountains rise from the flat plains they once were. Oceans split apart lands, destroying continents, but creating new ones. Trees loom and fall while flowers blossom and die. The world grows and dies in a constant cycle that continues to repeat itself time and time again. Along with the world, mankind has endured time’s challenges and has changed and grown. Humanity, however, is not trapped within a cycle doomed to repeat itself. With unique individuals each working to improve his own life, culture is created and knowledge is shared to aid the development of mankind and the world. Mankind’s development has become an art, and everyone who works applies his own stroke of color.