I'd like to start this post by explaining an idea that I like, because I think it will help to make it clearer how I think about the past and therefore why I have written what I have in this post. The way I see it, me in the past isn't really me; they're another version of me, like a different person almost. Over time I have grown as a person, and as time goes on I'll continue to change and (hopefully) improve. It's easier to think about this by dividing myself into eras, spans of time at which I can consider myself one version of me. I think part of the reason that I like this idea is that I can distance myself from these previous versions of me, along with all of their flaws and mistakes. Also I just feel like I'm not the same person that I was in middle school or kindergarten or sophomore year, even if those people had some control over who I am today.
As far as senior year goes, it was fun. I felt like I did really well in all aspects of my life. Or maybe not all of them, but I found a balance that I liked. It's almost like all the way back freshman year, when we took Health and we used those health triangle thingies. I hope you guys know what I'm talking about. It had the whole thing with the three sides where it was like your social, mental/emotional, and physical health. I remember learning about that and thinking, "Who even cares about this triangle? I don't even need the social side of this thing whatsoever!" Boy was I stupid. I think that this year, I had a pretty good triangle. If I had to draw it, it'd be something like this:
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Okay so now I gotta explain which sides which cause otherwise that doesn't make any sense. So the bottom is definitely physical (because it's supporting the other two sides #swole). So then the hypotenuse is mental (Mental Hypotenuse would be a good band name) and the tall one is social. Why am I even talking about triangles? Because I'm really proud of how I've changed this triangle since last year. I'd probably say this is what my triangle was at that point:
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See how awful my triangle was? The sides don't even connect, like that can't be very good. Okay so I think I've made my point as far as triangles go.
W A T C H O U T : G O O D S E G U E W A R N I N G
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| Not featured on his iconic segway, Paul Blart shares a loving moment with his fellow mall firefighter Adam Sand. |
So triangles have three sides, and IB is basically the Illuminati. I think I've actually learned a ton in IB. If I could go back and do high school again, I definitely would still do IB. The thing is, it's hard for me to admit how much I learned, because most of the changes were slow and hard to define in black and white terms. For example, I really like how my opinions on women's rights have changed during IB. The thing is that they didn't really change, but instead I found a solid logical basis on which to support my ideas. This didn't just make me feel better about my ideas, but it also made me care about them more. Like before sophomore year I would've been like, "Yeah women should have the right to get abortions, and yeah the school dress code is obviously biased by the objectification of women." But now I'm like, "Yeah women should have the right to get abortions, and yeah the school dress code is obviously biased by the objectification of women, AND THAT IS SO MESSED UP LIKE AAAAAAARGH WE NEED TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT RIGHT NOW!!!!!" And I think that's a better stance, because it means that I care more.
I got to know myself much better through IB too. Through IB Art junior year, I realized I had a passion for journalism, which caused me to write for the Cat Talk this year and has currently put me on a path to study Journalism at UNC! I enjoyed IB Art senior year even more, because I felt like I really began to find my artistic style and voice. I even got to use programming skills to make a couple of really cool 3D game art thingies which was like the funnest thing ever. I just realized, I hope these aren't being graded for proper grammar and spelling and what not because I just said the word "thingies," which unfortunately is the perfect word to describe that concept.
Speaking of English, this year was my favorite English class ever. I looooooooooooooved Never Let Me Go; I really never wanted to let it go. It was so sad but so good at the same time, and I truly cared about the characters. Also, I just want to point out right now that from the second Tommy appears in the book, I thought of him as Aziz Ansari. There is no other way to accurately imagine Tommy, and it is a shame that Garfield stole his role in the movie. I also really enjoyed Handmaid's Tale; it reminded me of 1984 in some ways, but it didn't have as much of the dry, matter-of-fact tone to it that Orwell's works have to them. The Stranger was great because I struggled with trying to conceptualize my counterargument to absurdist literature and existentialism, which I knew I thought was incorrect but had a hard time explaining why. I did end up reading the first part of Kafka's Metamorphosis though, and I really enjoyed it. Absurdist literature is so great because it's very 1st-person oriented and stream of consciousness. I liked ending the year on Leaves of Grass. Whitman's material lined up a lot with things I believe, and it was interesting to see how he expressed himself through poetry. I have a bit of a soft spot for poetry because my grandpa is a poet. Whenever I visit him I usually get to see some spoken poetry which is always really great. Finally, who could forget Macbeth. I mean, I'm Macbeth. The asides were great too, because "it gives you a look into the character's head, and, it allows you to see what they're, planning."
