Throughout English class this year I have learned a lot and deciding what I consider my most valuable experience is difficult. However, after much deliberation, thinking back through the essays we wrote and the class discussions we've had, I would have to say these blog posts are what I would consider my most valuable experience.
Varying in length and topic, these blog posts have forced me not only to think, but then to articulate my thoughts, an invaluable experience for my future, in which I hope I can continue writing. I may switch to WordPress, as Weebly has proved many times to be too unreliable, but nonetheless I do intend to continue this habit. In addition, the other longer forms of writing, such as the few essays we've had to write throughout the year have been invaluable to my skill as a student, researcher, and human. These were also in close contention, but since these blog posts were created with greater regularity, I ultimately chose them. The more shared and social experiences I had in this year of English certainly should not be discounted, but thinking for myself on topics I'm often silent on was not only fun, but enlightening. Overall, English III was hard, fun, and allowed me to gain a deeper understanding on a multitude of topics, and I am sure the experiences I've made in this class will remain with me for the rest of my life. What is transcendentalism?
A question easier asked than answered, but I will try. Transcendentalism essentially refers to the idea that humans can gain a deeper understanding of the universe and their individual place within it through solitary contemplation, away from society and societal standards. The thoughts expressed by those such as Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson place nature, in it's purest state, as the ideal placement for contemplation in preparation for transcending. Them and the other few transcendentalists believed that there was a higher power in the universe, and through this method of self-contemplation, glimpses into the meaning and nature of this power can occur. In modern culture, the technologically heavy society's presence blurs the line between the separation of society and nature further than ever before. However, similar ideas of self discovery and glimpsing into a higher knowledge are explored in different works. Many people use nature as a catalyst for their art, whether it be writing, drawing, painting, photography, etc, but in a strange way, the recent "aesthetic" movement which has arrived on social media opens the door for new contemplation. This "aesthetic" movement revolves around aesthetically pleasing or strange photographs which can bring into question what art is, what humans consider beautiful, and in the spreading of them, contemplation about humanity can become quite complicated and intertwined. Many of the images are made with the intent of spurring thought, and parodies are numerous, but strangely, this technological and social phenomenon connects to the transcendentalist ideal of self contemplation. "I cannot go," I say, my sound flying out, walls taking it around and back.
"I cannot go," I say again. A shrill laugh, again, and again, bring my gut to a swirl as many laughs spin around, shaking, taunting my conviction. As laughs stop, fading into nothing, my soul, faint as it is, must now stand against windy words. "You think you actually hold a say in this situation," Third High Councillor said. As winds hit, I did not bow. "That was sad to watch you say that. By far, it owns an honor of most hilarious thing I think I caught today," High Advisor said. A flood of frightful might hit, but I still stood. "Your authorization, for no lack of wanting it, is not a crucial condition. I command that this High Council go forward without approval by our sacrificial catalyst." "I concur." As air blasts into my skin, a vigorous group of gusts blast to my foundation. My lachryma flows, warming my skin as it ran its way. As my mouth splits, filling with salty solution, my body transforms into pain, and my optics turn to black. That salty flavor lasts into what is past annihilation. I remembered scheduling the appointment to have my wisdom teeth removed. I remember the mask being lowered over my nose and mouth. I remember the world slowly turning black.
I woke slowly, shook into consciousness. I tiredly tried to lift my hands. Why can't I... Looking down, I saw my right hand cuffed to a brown leather briefcase. I squinted my eyes, noting how my hands were chained together, and that that chain was tightly linked to the floor. I blinked hard a few times, almost returning to unconsciousness. I finally noticed the gag in my mouth and the sour taste that flooded my senses. Where am I? What is-my phone. The thought cut through clearly and I struggled to turn my hips to the left. I twisted for some time before I had managed to turn, becoming more alert by the time I had accomplished my feat. I took a moment to look around. The small space continued to shake rhythmically. I must be on a train of some sort. I raised my hand as far as I could, getting a few fingers into my pocket. My fingers felt around a sheet of a wrinkled paper and I managed to isolate the sheet in between my index and middle and pulled it out of my pocket. A series of numbers, letters, and symbols were typed on the sheet, incomprehensible. I began to slide, the chain holding me in place, as the train slowed. I heard shuffling outside the door before it opened. Lights from the guards flashlights blinded me and one of them said, "She's awake. I'll grab the paper." I tried to say something, but all that came out was a grunt. "Be quiet." The guard took the sheet and took some sort of scanner that had been hanging at her side and scanned in the code. "Patient for Project Day 3 to Dr. V in Room 1127-E. Subject Code 23906," she spoke into the air. "Confirmed," she said as she nodded to the other guard. He bent down and stuck a syringe in my neck. The pain didn't last. I woke up in a chair. Looking around, a bright light blinded me, and the darkened room around me was indistinguishable. I blinked quickly, hoping to clear my vision. The gag was gone but my throat was too dry to speak. The vague taste of blood filled my mouth, but I didn't feel any liquid. I guess I just had blood from the surgery and it dried... A door opened. I grunted. "Now, calm down. Let's see who you are," a soothing, feminine voice said. The bright light turned off and the room lights turned on. A large, dark Indian woman stood next to the light switch, her large, black brimmed glasses pressed against her chubby face. She walked over to me. I tried to move my arms, but discovered they had been restrained to the seat. "There's no need for that. Just calm down and we'll get you out of here soon," her voice echoed in the room. I looked around. Several black walls contrasted with the white shelves, but the room was largely nondescript. The woman, who I assumed was Dr. V, stood next to me and unlocked the briefcase. She took out a manila folder and a thumb drive from inside. She quickly flipped through the file and then said, "Ayomide Makena. That's an interesting name. Well, I'm going to have you moved into a better room for a basic exam. There is no need to be afraid." She smiled softly, revealing a healthy set of straight, white teeth. I realized how big my eyes were and how heavy and quick my breathing had gotten. I tried to calm myself and tried to ask a question. "Shhhh..." she said soothingly . "We'll get you some water after you've been moved and then you can ask any questions you may have." She smiled again and then left the room for a short time. A few guards came in and picked up the entire chair and carried my through the facility. We went down a long concrete hallway, taking a few turns. As we walked, the cold air cooled my head and woke me up a bit more. After Dr. V opened the door to a room, swiping her ID across a sensor outside, the guards put the seat down in there, and after Dr. V gave them her thanks, left. She went to get me a cup of water from a sink, putting down the file and thumb drive on the counter next to it. Looking over to the right, I saw a tray with syringes, scalpels, and other medical instruments sitting on the table. They were covered in dried blood. I felt my pulse quicken, but forced myself to remain calm. She brought it over and undid the restraint on my left hand, the one with briefcase on it. She placed the water in my hand, and I slowly brought the cool drink to lips. I drank down the cold water completely and gratefully. Dr. V smiled again. With all the strength a could muster, I brought the briefcase into a forceful contact with the doctor's head. She fell back and I turned for the tray and scrambled for something sharp. Dr. V, her face red and contorted in anger, had began to get up. I took a stab, aiming for her eye. I missed. As she rose, I deeply pierced and slashed through her throat, some of her warm blood spilling on my hand. She tried to let out a scream, but she seemed to be unable to. After she fell back to the ground, she began to crawl across the floor, blood trailing under her. Choking on her own blood, she didn't last for long. I quickly undid my other restraints, on both my legs and feet. I went to the sink and ran water over my hands. The icy water didn't stop my shaking, and didn't help my breathing. Tears began to stream down my face as blood streamed into the sink. I dried my hands and my face with a nearby cloth, still breathing erratically and shaking. What is happening? I went back to the sink and washed my face with the cold water. After drying my face again, a grabbed the file and the thumb drive, shoving the latter in my pocket. The file opened to a picture of me; it was the picture that was printed on my Drivers License. My name and some basic medical info were typed on the page as well. I flipped through to the next page, my medical history. I flipped through, hoping to find some clues as to what was happening, and came across a page that read "{Confidential: Varnaj Only}" along the top. Ignoring the stamp I read on. "Ayomide Makena exhibited the desired mutation in the concerned genes and therefore has been selected for further experimentation in Project Day 3 under the supervision of you. The subject has already exhibited increased aptitude in both physical and mental spheres. The nature of these expressions are explained further in her section of Project Day 1. You are to experiment in the possibilities for improvement in the field of passive mental awareness, as was deemed necessary by the board overseeing Project D3. Control Group H will be used for comparison." Is this why all those people kept- A sudden knock on the door startled me. "Dr. V ? Will you need any help with this patient?" someone asked. I took a deep breath, and did the best I could to imitate the doctor's voice. "No, thank you." "You sound a bit weird. Are you sure everything is going all right?" The knob on the door began to turn. I ran to behind where the door would close. After opening the door, he gasped as he saw the body. Before he could scream, I had the handcuff chain around his neck and his head to my chest. We struggled and moved around for a while, but eventually he stopped squirming. I stayed like that for a few more seconds and then let him onto the floor... into the blood of Dr. V. I rolled him out of it, the outline of the chain reddening on his pale neck, and then proceeded to stick my hand in in the doctor's pocket. I took out the warmed key chain and looked for and then found a key fitting my handcuffs. After uncuffing myself, I shoved the keys in my pocket and ripped off V's ID card. I rubbed my sore wrists for a bit. Going back to the bloody tray, I grabbed the largest and sharpest scalpel I could find and exited the room. I went back in and put the folder and thumb drive back in the briefcase, and then headed back out. I looked to my left, and then my right. I didn't see any doors that exit. I headed to my right partially down the hallway and then turned right up another hallway. No guards in sight so far... I continued along my way up that way, heading towards the door at the end of the hallway which had a glass window which exited to a courtyard outside. I ran to the door and, scanning Dr. V's ID on the sensor and hearing a click, pushed open the heavy door. Outside, crickets chirped and some birds sang, albeit in the distance. That noise was soon overpowered by the shout, "Subject Unconfined!!! Repeat Subject Unconfined at East to West Courtyard!!! East Side!!!" My feet had begun rapidly hitting the pavement, as had his, before the message was complete. I sprinted what I assumed was West. I heard doors open and the commanding shout of "Non-lethal!!!", but I didn't bother to look back to see who was making sure my life was preserved for whatever "experimentation" these people had planned for me. I kept running. A wire fence obstructed my path, but I quickly scaled it. "Subject has passed Western barrier!!!" "Do not engage!!!" Why aren't they following? I didn't have time to stop and ask though, so I just ran into the Western building, which had an open garage door as an entrance. I hopped up some stairs two at a time, to the ground level of this side of the facility. Bending over, I breathed in and out, letting oxygen replenish my body. I looked around in the dark room, only lit by the outside courtyard light. I noticed silhouettes waiting at the barrier. I looked along the ground and saw a flashlight back down the stairs in the garage area, where I assumed something had been parked at one time, although since the courtyard was enclosed, I didn't know what. I went back down the stairs and grabbed the light, hoping it would prove useful. That is a generous barrier. From the entrance to the West Wing to the fence was at least 70 feet. I hesitated a moment before I turned on the flashlight and headed further in the facility. As I approached the door, I looked around for anything that may help me in the garage. After scanning the room with the flash light, I found a circuit box. I flipped the circuits and the garage lit up. Must go to the same generator as the other wing. I heard shouting over at the fence and decided it was time to go in. I unbolted the heavy door and went in, keeping it open behind me. Inside, the hallway lights dimly lit the hallway, some of the fluorescent lights flickering. This seems like the perfect setting for a horror story. The walls were the same nondescript concrete, and the few black metal doors. I moved slowly down the dim hallway, listening for signs of life. As I passed and intersection I felt a breeze. I looked to either side. A large, rusted, metal fan was turning at the end of the hallway to my left. How old is this place? I shoved the ID into my pocket, and held the scalpel in one hand, and the flashlight in the other. I continued down the central hallway looking down every left and right hallway, seeing if there was another exit. There doesn't seem to be anyone in here. Something felt off, and I heard the creak of a door echo. Shit. I felt a surge of adrenaline as my heartbeat quickened. I turned left and headed down the hallway. No doors are opening now. Or whatever that was. The West groaned some more with another door opening. At least I'll have an exciting death. I ran down the hallway to the end, where another hallway extended back to the front and went further than middle hallway I had been travelling down. Looking back to the front, the direction to where the garage was, I saw a figure of a person. I ran. "Nope," I said aloud. I continued down the long hallway, my heavy footsteps apparently causing more doors to open. This was a great idea. I continued to sprint down the hallway, my heart feeling as if it were about to explode. Ahead of me a figure slid out of a hallway. I turned to the right. As I continued to run, my breath heavy, I felt beads of sweat run down my face. Coming to the west side of the West Wings central hallway, I looked down the path. There was a door on the end, heavily barricaded. It was probably the exit. Great. I turned around, finding another person emerging from a hallway ahead. I ran ahead to the end and then turned to my right down a hallway. All the doors were closed. One opened. Shit. I tried the knob of a door near to me. Didn't budge. Keys? I shakily took the keys out of my pocket, and tried two in the door. The second worked, but the door wouldn't budge. I slammed myself against the door. Shit. More noise. After body slamming it again, the door budged a little and I managed to slide myself in as a nearby voice cried, "Here!" I closed the door and firmly put the metal desk back to barricade, and looking around, pushed the nearby mini-fridge over, and slid it under the desk and against the door. I almost shit my pants as a familiar voice behind me said, "I wondered if you were ever going to show up here." It was my brother. I would have hugged him, but he looked nasty, like he hadn't showered in months. "There was water and food in here. It was kind of like the employee lounge, but the kitchen was on the West Side. You doing OK?" I just nodded. We hadn't spoken for months, not since I had decided to separate myself from my family. "You look different." "Yep," I said softly. "It's been almost six months. Four since I've been here. And then all this shit happened." "She's in here," a voice outside said. The sound of banging on the door filled the room. "Can I see the scalpel?" Taking the blade part in my hand, I handed him the handle. He took it, looked over and examined the metal, and then lifted his sweat stained shirt and shoved it into his abdomen. "What the fuck!?!" I screamed in response. He raised the blade inside him. The doors banging was getting louder. My brother laid down. "What the fuck were you thinking?! What are you doing?!?!" He calmly lay there for a moment, bleeding some, before responding, "Inside there is a flash drive with all the data collected here. I had it stuck in after I found out what was happening here, and all of these subjects began to organize. I knew, but they didn't have a clue. You are part of project Day 3?" I nodded. "This was Project Ferror. I was an early Day 3-er, but they allowed me more rights and access. It doesn't matter now. You need to get out of here with the USB out of my body after I die. It's covered in a little plastic bag inside here," he said pointing to the wound. I wanted to scream. "Now, calm down." I still wanted to scream. Why here? Why now? Some strange things about my past began to make some more sense. His blood was pooling on the concrete floor. "There is a backway out of this room. Just... just go the pantry, and there is a... you'll know when you see it." His eyes began to flutter, and then close. He was still breathing, but it was light and quick. I stood there, squeezing my hands in my rough hair. I couldn't calm myself down. I kneeled down and applied pressure to his wound, tears rolling down my face. The banging continued. The breathing stopped. After sitting for some time over his corpse, the blood had managed to pool around me and stain my jeans. My breathing had calmed. After a minute, I stretched out my hand to do as my brother had asked. (This part gets pretty nasty. You have been warned.) I closed my eyes, and felt around until I found the incision. As I stuck my hand in, a sloshing sound invaded my ears, and the warm, squishy feeling enclosed my hand. It was warm, soft, and wet. I gagged. I felt around for a second. The door banged on. I couldn't feel any plastic bag. I forced my eyes opened. Looking at my hand inside the bloody wound, I almost threw up. I pulled out the blood soaked hand and bent over the wound. I turned so my shadow wasn't on it. I pulled back each side and looked around at my brother's insides, gagging at both the sight and the smell, and fighting back tears. "Oh God..." I looked for a minute, and noticed the faint glint and bend of something that didn't look like tissue. Keeping the incision plied open with one hand, I stuck the other in and picked for the plastic, missing the first time, and almost drew out God knows what. (That was the worst of it.) I hesitated to put my hand back in. I decided to search his pockets. It was in his right one. I slammed my fist to the floor, blood spattering on my shirt, and yet out a frustrated yell. The banging got louder. I couldn't stop shaking. I finally got up went to the pantry and looked around after the desk had moved a bit. There was a window, letting in light from the stars outside. It was only about three feet across and one foot tall. I grabbed a can of beans and broke the glass. A warm breeze caressed my skin. The sound of waves crashing gave me hope. I avoided any broken glass on the floorand knocked out any remnants that may have remained on the window. Shit. If there is a shoreline to be found, I can't swim there covered in blood. I looked around. Water. I grabbed the pack and shoved it through the window. It barely fit. I heard the creak of metal as the desk finally moved. It took them so long. They must be weak. Time to go. I hopped up and squirmed through the window, being thankful of my smaller butt for the first time in my life. Picking up the water, I ran through the grasses and trees that covered the area, hearing my breathing and the ocean waves get louder as I did. As I exited the canopy I looked out on the ocean, and the distant outline of mountainous land. I stripped and quickly bathed myself in the bottled water before gulping down a few lukewarm drinks. Looking over my body to make sure there was no visible blood, I quickly began to rub myself with sand, hot tears heating my cheeks. I drank one more bottle and then used the remaining bottles to generously clean off my sand covered body. As I entered the cold water, only my underwear to provide warmth, I shivered. I dipped the briefcase in for a few seconds, no bubbles came up. I waited, the briefcase, which I had deposited the plastic encased flash drive in, needed to stay dry. No sharks at least. Yet. Lifting the briefcase out of the water, I re-opened it using the code 23906. With a click, it sprang open, the contents untouched by the water. Just to be safe, I closed it again and submerged it. When I reopened it, the inside was still dry. Closing it, I walked deeper into the water, looking to the distant land. I had a long swim ahead of me. When I moved to Alton, IL a lot of changes surrounded me, but what I most enjoyed was the cat that came with the house we bought, MnM. He was a really cute, gray cat, and was the first pet I'd ever had, so I made sure to hold and pet him as much as possible. He was a mixture of indoor and outdoor, going by the door when he needed to relieve himself, or going to my parents room and shaking their bed if it was at night. He was a very spoiled cat, and loved to snuggle up with one of us in the house at night, acting as a tiny, cute furnace. MnM also shed, and as most cats do, it was quite substantial. His grey hairs were especially noticeable on black clothing, but nonetheless, I would still hold and pet him all the time. At that house, we had a deck outside our kitchen door, and a equally cute, but roughed up cat would sometimes come up and steal MnMs food which was outside. We provided him a dish, and, after assessing he was a he, we named him KitKat. We decided he was an exclusively outside cat after the one time he came inside and rubbed himself on my mom's dresses, giving them a distinct odor which my mother was not too happy about.
We took care of them, and I loved to hold MnM like a baby, despite the fact that he was actually older than me. By the time we were moving again, MnM was very old, and began losing control of his bowel movements. We put a litter box in our bathroom, and for a time, he was content with going there. Eventually, he resumed leaving presents on the ground, and my parents, since we were unable to take him with us to Texas, decided to let MnM have a good last day, giving him the remaining treats we had, and some to KitKat of course. I remember sadly petting them that morning, and my father returning from the vets with a box. He was buried on the edge of the woods behind our house that he had loved so much. I don't know what KitKat's fate was, but I hope his rough self is happy. Recently, at Oklahoma University, the fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon was video taped shouting racist chants, including the use of references to lynchings and multiple utterances of the n-slur. The response to the video has been appropriately negative, but as with anything within politics debate has arisen, and the old (to my generation) "why-can-only-black-people-use-the-n-word-and-I-can't" has been again brought to the forefront, thankfully mostly behind the anger towards OU's SAE. Still, a guest on CNN thought it would be appropriate to ask how black people expect white people not to say it, when popular rap music by black artists uses such language. He went on to say how they are just repeating what they have heard there. Of course, black Twitter didn't take long to respond with the hashtag "#RapAlbumsThatCausedSlavery", satirizing how idiotic his assertion was that rap music was at the heart of racial slurs. This tends to be a sadly common thought among my fellow white people, that for whatever reason we should be allowed to say it without any repercussions (although I wonder why they want to....) when black people can. My response is this: They are reclaiming a word that has been used for so many years, and continues to be, used to dehumanize and degrade black people. We can;t say, "my n****"", because for more than a hundred years under slavery (thinking pre-US), those were what black people were to white people.
The SAE's actions are deplorable, but they reflect only a fraction of racism present on college campuses. Internalized racism often manages to express itself in college, taking form in far too common black face parties. These parties are far from uncommon, and are routinely ignored unless black people do something that could be perceived as violent in response. The critically acclaimed film, Dear White People, explores this issue specifically, along with many other aspects of race politics, excellently, and I would recommend it. This is not the first time an SAE fraternity has been in the news either. In 2009, Cornell University's chapter had hazed George Desdunes, son of Haitian immigrants, to death. He was found by college cleaners, zip tied and duct taped hands and feet, and had died of alcohol poisoning from a hazing the night before. While it is unclear whether this death is racially motivated, SAE across the nation has a history of racism. The form of racism that is common is what I like to call Diet Racism. It's racism without the commitment of racial slurs, or the repercussions. It's mostly internalized and readily defended by "I Don't See Race", and is generally really bad at recognizing problems. The identities of most of the young men in SAE has been protected, which bothers me. While the lives of unarmed black men killed by police will be searched for every flaw, every bad thing they may have done, these young men may never feel the full repercussions of their actions. Some have come to their defense, saying they were clearly wasted, but that only means they were saying what they already had on their minds, but didn't have the mental capacity to filter it. This chant is a call to wake up. Wake up to the fact that racism is not over, that it never was. Wake up to the fact that racism has been instilled into our culture. Wake up to the fact that it will take years of work to undo the damage racism has done, and maybe that damage never will be undone, but at least we can undo the inherent racism present in society. Wake up to the fact that in our lifetimes, and most likely for many years to come, it has always been more acceptable to be white. Wake up to the fact that ignoring problems does not eliminate them. While it is easy for white people to call out this action due to the severity, we still need to monitor ourselves, and society, and demand that these systems be dismantled. PS Also, if you're a white ally like myself, don't speak over black people in the fight for equality. So, this week I was assigned to write a labyrinthine sentence, which, believe or not, I have a habit of doing in much of my fictional writing, which has led to countless a-maze-ing sentences which seem to have no end in sight, and ultimately, end in confusion for the reader, and despite my best efforts to clarify my thoughts I often must tear apart my carefully crafted sentences into less stupefying, and hopefully, more clear individual sentences, which I hope allows my readers to grasp what I am saying and get lost in the world I've built without actually getting lost in my sentence.
Anyway, basically a labyrinthine sentence is a sentence that exceeds 100 words in length; often, these sentences will employ rich, descriptive, and sometimes excessive additions along side punctuation that is otherwise used sparsely, such as semicolons, colons, dashes, and parenthesis as means of insurance that the sentence follows appropriate English writing grammar rules, as if it does not, it can no longer be considered sentence by these rules and therefore cannot be called a labyrinthine; however, it should not confuse the reader like a maze would (although it could), rather, it should amaze the reader, and if you are like Nathaniel Hawthorne, make the reader feel as if they have just finished running a marathon. I think these sentences can be pretty amazing, and are very fun; however, they can easily become clearly trying to expand word length by including multiple lengthy, elaborate, miscellaneous, mosaics of words that truly are repetitive, redundant, and ultimately, unnecessary to the meaning of a sentence; still, they have the potential to be introspective and meta, bringing out the unique art of weaving together a vocabulary of words in a sentence you most likely would actually never speak out loud due to the fact, that, as a human you must breathe; yet, becoming meta they can become increasingly weird, doing something as inserting a link to a picture of a cow, only to have the reader discover it is actually a chicken, only to discover the truth that our reality is a sad place of cheap jokes and gain a strange anger at objectively harmless concepts that have been made to be humorous through their constant use, which has also brought their demise as humor, and developed them into a sad, meta, redundant, repetitive, creature, which constantly evolves by the masses to please the masses. Anyway, I hope y'all have a great weak. |