ACT and other things

ACT. Wowzers.
Difficult? Yes. It made me feel like an ignoramus most of the time. Maybe this is good.
The writing part was about if a course in Financial Management is a good idea for highschoolers. I said yes, even though I probably would never take it. But I didn't mention that part.
There was a cute girl that sat next to me. We didn't talk or anything. But we sat three feet from each other for five hours. I think that deserves some credit.

P.F. Changs was scrumptious. We ate there afterwards. I think the Chinese were given a magical book of taste from the gods, but they won't tell anybody. Nerds.

Went to the mall looking for pea coats. Found one. Had little buttons with anchors on them. Made me look scrawny and boxy all at the same time. And it cost too much. So no. No pea coat.
Radiohead CD instead.
This CD is magical. I listened to it the whole way through with my eyes closed on a bed, and I kept feeling like I should grab onto something, because I was afraid I would float off somewhere. It was a very real and almost terrifying thought. I liked it. It was like what drugs would be like, only better and I don't think I could be addicted to it.

I was asked if I would ever do Marijuana when I got the chance. I said no. I prefer consciousness. At least I think I do. I'm not too fond of anything that messes with my consciousness and perception of reality. Plus it's a bad testimony. Whatever that means.

What is this really about?

Coloring Contests and Grasshoppers

I can never catch all of what this guy sings about. But what I do catch sounds beautiful.

Eight hours from now I'll be waking up to The Office ringtone. Why so early? Because I need to take a five hour test starting at eight o'clock. FIVE HOURS!!!???
Yes.
It's called the ACT. And for some reason people spell it out rather than shout the word. I was told it stands for something, but I don't know what. And supposedly if you fill in all the right circles (yes, it's a coloring contest), people give you money to go learn things at their schools. But a five hour coloring competition? things are getting out of hand.

I think life is beginning to be a cycle of waking up and falling asleep for me. And not just the bed-sleep either. God wakes me up with this great new idea about Him, and everything begins to make sense, and i start feeling so real and alive, and all the gears in the clock just somehow start to work together. And then two days later my eyes are closed and I'm dreaming about anything that would make me happy, like Lee Lewis in a ballerina outfit before a crowd of a thousand laughing faces, or me winning money, or i dont know...something along those lines. And then when I'm asleep I start forgetting the important things, like God and his Grace and his Hope. and I start looking at all the insignificant and unspectacular things, like myself and my doubts and all these terrible things that fill my life that I wish would go away.

God woke me up again. This time he used a grasshopper.

I was feeling rather self-centered and materialistic that day. I spent the entire day wondering what it would be like to flip a certain somebody off, and I think I said three mean things to a teacher (in my head, of course). After school I spent two hours counting all my dollars, just to see how much I had. I wasn't planning on buying anything. But money feels good when you're angry. And I was angry.
It was at sunset that I walked into my room and noticed a bright green grasshopper perched horizontally on my bedroom window. Motionless. Alone. Tiny and insignificant. I crawled up on my bed to him and pressed my nose on the opposite side of the windowpane , so that we were staring at each other, face to face.
We were probably like this for five minutes. Nobody moved.
And then I noticed it. How big he looked. Like the monster from Cloverfield or Godzilla. From my perspective it looked as if he could have taken up the entire street below. Construction workers were out making bricks. It looked as though the grasshopper could pick them all up with one antenae and throw them in his mouth. It was a terrifying thought. Like the End Times or something.
Strange. Something so small that I could destroy with a stamp of my foot was terrifying me. It was so out of proportion that it looked more powerful and ugly than any of those construction workers down below, even though in reality they could've accidentally dropped a brick on its head and kill it.

I think this is what happens to us sometimes. All of our worries and doubts and enemies and trials get so close to our faces that we tend to blow everything out of proportion. We start thinking that these things could eat us up, eat the whole world up, eat God up, with one long antenae. But in reality, GOd could squish them with one "accidental" drop of a brick, or a rock, or...something.

It's a very basic thought. But I think it's necessary.

God is bigger than the boogyman.
He's bigger than godzilla or the grasshopper on your window.

Remember :)

I dont have much time to write this, but I just thought I'd say this: Donald Miller is brilliant.
Blue Like Jazz is brilliant. I'm learning things.
Time for school.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b79m3fJfmuA&feature=related

-Bodies

I've just realized how boring I am.
Every day is just like the other. Wake up too late, take too long getting ready, get stuck in traffic, get to school around 7:56, take a drink at the waterfountain, do school, say a few funny comments here and there, do my job, go home, spend too long doing unimportant things (like homework), then go to sleep and dream about wearing a pink jumpsuit at my Aunt's funeral.
Where's life going? What's it all about anymore? Am I even living? I think I'm just surviving. Just getting through the day, following the safest routine I know.
How many of my friends like ice in their drink? How many think it waters it down? What's your favorite colored shoelace? I don't know. I never bothered to know. The only thing I've bothered to know is that I like lots of ice in my drinks and my favorite shoelace is white.

I think I've just become so focused on surviving my own life that I've become disinterested in living in somebody else's. I think this is important.

Wait... Gotta eat.

Num Num Num...

I think if people really started taking an interest in each other, in the world outside their own ten-foot radius of comfort, well, the world will be a better place. And not just on the outside. The inside world, too. The part that really matters. People's hearts will be a little more loveable. People's minds would be more open. And people's stomachs would be a little less demanding.

We can't just love somebody to get something out of them. This is called Mercinary Love (as C.S. Lewis calls it), and I think it's in the neighborhood of sin. Like marrying somebody because of their money, or befriending the common nerd because it looks good on your campaign for highschool president.
To love somebody, to truly love them, must not have any motives beyond itself. Otherwise, it's not love at all, but selfishness, or something that I dont know the word for.

Maybe i'm just trying to be deep. Maybe in a way this is boosting my ego and pride. I hope not. It's just been something going through my head these past days and I thought i'd get it down into words.

I wrote a song about it too. Here's the lyrics.

http://myspace.com/somebodysomewhere

-Bodies

Everybody's wasting time
staring at their watches, watching time go by.
Here we're standing, side by side.
Holding hands, watching eachother die.

And nobody loves anybody anymore
And everybody loves themselves too much
But if somebody loved someone with all their heart,
then someone will love somebody else.

People changing, watch them go.
Faces aging as their bodies grow.
We run in circles, run the race.
Every step we take we're digging graves.

And nobody loves anybody anymore
And everybody loves themselves too much
But if somebody loved someone with all their heart,
then someone will love somebody else.

The world will shine so brightly
But we have our curtains closed
We're asleep inside our open eyes
and we forget that we're alone.

We surrender our hearts for helmets
in the times that try men's souls.
We see stars in the sky and forget our minds
and make computers to count them all.

Everybody's wasting time, staring at their watches,
watching time go by.

The Abolition of Man

If C.S. Lewis was living nowadays, I would make sure I was his neighbor, or his student, or his best friend or something. I've only read I think three of his non-fictional books, but I plan to read more. But what I've read is fascinating.
Among these three books is the Abolition of Man. I wrote a paper (or outline) on this one too. I dont know why I should put this up, but I dont know why I shouldn't, either. So behold:

Isaac Middleton

Bible 11/12

October 15, 2009

The Abolition of Man

I. In The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis expresses the importance of values such as valor, courage, and honor, proves that by the means of education and scientific progress men are destroying these values, and expresses the consequences of this destruction.

A.Chapter One- Men Without Chests
1.Lewis spends much of his time with The Green Book (1), an English textbook meant for the education in the upper forms of school. While this book intends to teach English grammar, it also has an agenda to undermine value judgments such as “the waterfall is sublime,” saying that sublime does not modify waterfall but instead modifies the feelings that one has towards the waterfall (3). “The schoolboy who reads this passage in The Green Book will believe two propositions: firstly, that all sentences containing a predicate of value are statements about the emotional state of the speaker, and secondly, that all such statements are unimportant” (4).

2.Lewis informs the reader that “the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought” (16).

3.Lewis also states that such objects as waterfalls merit responses, whether good or bad, from the observer. He also presents the Tao (similar to that of Taoism, but Lewis brings his own definition to the word). The Tao is “the doctrine of objective value.” For example, “those who know the Tao can hold that to call children delightful (a value judgment) or old men venerable is not simply to record a psychological fact about our own parental or filial emotions at the moment, but to recognize a quality which demands a certain response from us whether we make it or not” (19).

4.Lewis then states that the aim of educators, like the writers of the Green Book, is to do away with the Tao altogether, thus making “men without chests” (26).

B.Chapter Two- The Way
1. Lewis states that the “practical result of education in the spirit of The Green Book must be the destruction of the society which accepts it” (27). This foreshadows what is talked about in chapter three on the abolition of man.
2.In the educators’ opinion, their purpose for this destruction is for the good of society. Yet, they cannot maintain that ‘good’ simply describes their own emotions about it, because the purpose of their book is to teach the reader to share their approval. “And this would be either a fool’s or a villain’s undertaking unless they held that their approval was in some way valid or correct” (29). They are caught in their own logic, picking and choosing parts of the original Tao for their own use.
3. “Outside the Tao there is no ground for criticizing either the Tao or anything else” (48). To say “value is invaluable” is in itself a value judgment which uses the Tao to criticize it.
C. Chapter Three- The Abolition of Man
1.Lewis talks about “Man’s conquest of Nature” (53). He is speaking of all the scientific victories, such as the contraceptive, airplanes, and walkie-talkies. He proves that “man’s power over nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument” (55). He goes on to say that this power can also be exercised over those in the future. Since it is man’s power over other man, he proves that every victory for man is also the defeat of man as well; contraceptives, for example, exercise men’s victorious power of the present over the future helpless men who as a result never exist (57). Therefore, the race of man gets weaker with every generation (58).
2. Lewis states, “for the power of man to make himself what he pleases means, as we have seen, the power of some men to make other men what they please” (59).
3.Another way for man to make other men what he pleases is by the practice of The Green Book. While traditional education is “but old birds teaching young birds to fly” (61), the new educational system “produces conscience and decides what kind of conscience they will produce” (61). The educators are outside and above the new Tao, making a new artificial Tao. These educators, as Lewis says, “are not men at all. They are…men who have sacrificed their own share in traditional humanity in order to devote themselves to the task of deciding what ‘humanity’ shall henceforth mean” (63). The educators destroy humanity and make it to be whatever they would like. This, along with the scientific victories mentioned earlier, is the Abolition of Man.

II.Analysis
A.Quality of Writing
1.By viewing the cumbersome vocabulary and excessive amount of complex sentences, along with the topic being that which sparks the interest of educators, it can be concluded that the target audience was perhaps the educators of his day. Words such as ‘pillory, superfluity, neophyte (61), syllogisms (24), liaison, magnanimity (25), filial (19), and disparage (53), forces the average teenage reader to slide the dictionary off the shelf. Many references are made to words in different languages, including Latin (64-65, 68, 75) and Hebrew (27). The following sentence is but a representation of the reading difficulty: “We must therefore either extend the word Reason to include what our ancestors called Practical Reason and confess that judgments such as society ought to be preserved (though they can support themselves by no reason of the sort Gaius and Titius demand) are not mere sentiments but are rationality itself; or else we must give up at once, and forever, the attempt to find a core of ‘rational’ value behind all the sentiments we have debunked” (45). Though understandable after being read more than once, the reading becomes tiresome after many pages. But for the intended audience and subject, the sentence structure and word choice is appropriate. Despite the tediousness of the writing, the subject spoken of is enthralling, and keeps the reader’s attention.
2.He is interesting because of his mind-boggling logic, finding loopholes in other’s arguments, such as their criticizing of the Tao (48). He is also direct and to the point; the reader does not get lost in unimportant tangents. The first sentence of each chapter (for example, “I doubt whether we are sufficiently attentive to the importance of elementary text books” (1)) opens with a call to awareness. And by the end of each chapter, the reader is informed and aware.
B.Worldview or Phliosophy
1.C.S. Lewis states, “I myself am a Theist, and indeed a Christian” (49).
2.In a sentence, at least according to the context of this book, he values value (49).
3. The book has no plot, therefore evil does not triumph, nor is good rewarded. It simply expresses a situation. Christianity is only mentioned once, when C.S. Lewis refers to himself as being a Christian. In fact, he clearly states, “I am not attempting any indirect argument for Theism” (49). Yet he is arguing for doctrine that Theists do not object to (i.e. value judgments are important). Only within the Tao does life have meaning.
4.I recommend this book to those who have a broader vocabulary than I do, such as teachers and college students. I recommend this because I believe the topic that C.S. Lewis touches on is vital for those in the field of education to be aware of.
5. Though I do not understand some of his logic, I agree with that which I understand (i.e. the disparage of value statements is destroying humanity). (1,257)

I know I do a terrible job of representing what C.S. Lewis actually means (I think everyone would be insufficient at this job, except Lewis himself). But I think I got the gist of it.

A Tale of Hope in Two Cities- A Literary Essay

Like I said, I read Tale of Two Cities. It was for academic purposes, and usually when you read a book for such purposes, you're also forced to write words concering this book you've read. These are my words (with the help of Christy Chang of course).

Isaac Middleton

American Lit.

10/16/09

A Tale of Hope in Two Cities

“Hope begins in the dark.” Though Anne Lamott and Charles Dickens share few literary qualities, they both agree that there is hope even for those surrounded in darkness. In A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, hopelessness swarms around miserable characters. Yet by the use of theme, Dickens shows that there is hope for every man to improve, regardless of his present state.
Doctor Manette, an English physician who is “buried alive” (11) for eighteen years, is one of the most hopeless characters in the book. Before his imprisonment, he is a sharp man of understanding (297); but the slow years of incarceration distort him. Over time, his voice “looses the life and resonance of the human voice…like a once beautiful colour faded away into a poor weak stain” (35). Having rarely interacted with other men, his conversation is absurdly limited, either forgetting what is asked him, or always responding in an ambiguous and unsure way (36). Through time, his life becomes one with his imprisonment. For example, when asked his name, he responds “One Hundred and Five, North Tower” (37), the name of his prison. He remembers nothing of his happier past outside the cell, and lives his confined life making shoes. “Everything but his shoemaking died out of him in that cell” (40). Doctor Manette becomes a creature of complete and hopeless transparency, floating in a void of helpless solitude.
Hope comes to Manette in the form of a “light of freedom shining on him” (41). Lucie Manette, his daughter, recalls him to life and takes him back to England. There, he slowly transforms into the man he was before. In time, he fully returns to his normal self; “he studied much, slept little, sustained a great deal of fatigue with ease, and was equably cheerful” (120). On rare occasions, however, he returns to his shoe making (180), which represents a regression into his previous psychological state that maimed him in prison; but in the end, by the help of his daughter, he is fully restored and spends the rest of his life free from his mental confinement.
“As to me, the greatest desire I have, is to forget that I belong to [life]. It has no good in it for me—except wine like this—nor I for it” (75). Thus is the existence of Sydney Carton. A heavy drinker, Carton carries himself in a careless, almost insolent manner, bringing himself to be nobody of consequence to anybody (73). He plainly states that he “cares for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for [him]” (78). Though Carton is aware of his faults, he believes that there is no hope for him to change: “I have had unformed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew…But it is a dream that ends in nothing” (139). In the end, however, Carton turns out to be wrong. Pulled by his hopeless love for Lucie Manette, Carton rises from selfishness to selflessness by taking her husband’s spot on the guillotine. By sacrificing himself for Lucie’s loved one, Carton rises from his previous life of self-interest into that of courage and self-sacrifice.
France itself also represents the theme of hope in darkness. In the beginning, France is in a state of complete injustice and poverty, where it is a festival if a cask breaks and spills cheap wine over muddy streets for the serfs to lick up (25). Not only is France poor, but it is made up of wicked people. Before the revolution, the aristocrats have no mercy on the serfs. For instance, having “accidentally” run over a serf with his carriage, Monseigneur, an aristocrat, feels no pity or remorse (100). Yet, during the Revolution, the Revolutionists treat their former oppressors just as abominably, finding an aristocrat valuable only when his head is severed from his body (349). It is clear that France is in a restless state of wickedness. Yet, hope is not lost. As Carton is moments from his death, he pauses. “I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss” (351). Even Carton, a victim of the Revolution, has hope that the evil in France “will gradually make expiration for itself and wear out” (352).
“It is always darkest before the dawn.” In the cases of Doctor Manette, Carton, and France, it is darkest before their dawn; but dawn comes, nonetheless. By the use of these characters, Dickens expresses his theme of hope in A Tale of Two Cities. (748)

It's not very interesting. And there's some mistakes in it. And i absolutely loathe the technique we're forced to use to start out every paper. But there.

My Date with Dickens

This weekend I spent 5/6 of my awake hours on my bed, listening to Mozart, Yann Tiersen, Nobuo Uematsu, and the such, reading the highly acclaimed Tale of Two Cities.
What A Masterpiece.
I had tried to get into it for years at a time ever since 9th grade. But now, thank goodness, it's finished-- another paperback back on the shelf tucked neatly between my volume of The Lord of The Rings and Pride and Prejudice (yeah, I know, I have a very generic book collection...)

There was a phase that I was going through earlier, and it was this: I never read anything unless it was assigned. Not even newspapers or magazines-- not even candy bar rappers to see if they contained palm oil-- not even (heaven forbid) the Bible (with the exception of weekly Bible memory). I lived in this kind of empty void where words on a page were just the predecessor (if i may use the term correctly) of a good grade; and if I understood the words or not was simply irrelevant. I even went to a bookstore with my parents to see if I could get myself out of this phase, (yes, I knew what was happening to me, and I felt helpless in making it go away) but nothing worked. No books drew me to them. They were all just empty pages.
I was quite terrified.
I was quite illiterate.

I think I can accredit my salvation from this state to none other than Charles Dickens himself. Okay, so it was assigned as a classic... But still. These were words that moved me, that meant something. And I payed attention to them. Thus, my exiting from that horrible phase, into the FRIGGIN AWESOME!! world of words.
So now I think I might venture to tackle Les Miserables or David Copperfield. Maybe I'm just too confident now.