Insights into the Life of a Teenage Boy

I sat down looking and the golden arches of my Victorian mansion. I turned to my grand piano and revealed the keys from the oak cover. I slid the papers into the holder and set my finger upon the cool ivory covered wood keys and took a deep breath. I struck the first key and the rest began to just follow like a flowing river. The sounds of Beethoven’s Fur Elise bounced off the high ceilings and traveled through the mansion. It was only a matter of seconds of this ruckus that my mother barged through the door. I imagined she was hear to listen to this masterpiece, but my dream was shattered as she spoke above the music, “Honey, it’s time to wake up.”

I opened my eyes and responded with my ritual “ok” and she left the room. I sat in my bed staring into space thinking of the day to come. I went through my checklist of things to remember. The day of the week, Monday; first period class, English; is my bag packed, yes; time, 6:30 AM; time to shower, yes. I turned my body to the left to exit my bed and placed my feet on the red carpet squeezing it between my toes. I stood up slowly letting my legs awaken themselves and hold the weight of my body. I walked to the bathroom and crossed through the gateway into the area of my morning ritual. I grabbed my toothbrush and turned on the faucet letting water run over it. I flicked it at the sink watching the water droplets fly off and proceeded to grab my toothpaste. I turned the toothbrush on and applied the florid to my teeth and imagined I could feel the florid destroying plaque and the gum disease, gingivitis, causing germs. I questioned in my mind if this twice-daily process really does things besides making your breath smell nice. Is brushing your teeth an act of societies control over us, or does it truly work? I finished and spat out the remnants of the toothpaste in my mouth and took a handful of water and washed out my mouth. I looked to my right and looked through the glass panels of the shower and then looked to my right. I grabbed a clean towel and walked towards the shower throwing the towel onto the hook outside the shower and striped myself of the clothing I had on.

I opened the shower door and walked through the next gateway I must pass through. I turned the water on and felt the water warming my body. I shivered as the hot water ran down my body and down the drain. I requested from my data storage for a copy of my schedule. My brain was especially nice today and received the file from my unconscious. English 4, AP Art History, Morning Meeting, Drawing, Lunch, Statistic, Clay, Yearbook scrolled through my eyes allowing me to visualize my day before it started.

I would leave my house at 7:20 after eating breakfast and park my car in the small independent school at 7:30. I would arrive to English 3 minutes early as estimated to my usual arrival time. I would sit in class, as my teacher would go on analyzing literature to its fullest extent while I sat wondering why. He would present with a question and I would think, remembering on the reading I did the night before, looking for an answer. One would present his opinion, then another, and a few more. It was now my turn to speak up and I choose to question the trivial matters of which the man lived and wondering why he decided to do what he knew was wrong just to prove he was right. The teacher would ask a follow up question where the class would discuss with the big hitters in the class continuing to answer the question regardless if they decided to do the reading or not. The bell would end signifying the end of class and it was time for art History.

I would walk to art history with the one sophomore in the class who I called by a roman version of his name. We would partake in trivial banter on whether we had read the chapter, knowing full well before hand that neither of us had yet. I asked him before we enter the class if he was reading for the lecture and stopped paying attention knowing his answer would be no. The teacher arrived into the class and turned on the projector. The other guy in the class controlled the projector while the teacher lectured and I took notes. I wrote about the unique aspects of Greek sculptures and why the use of the column is so important. I looked at the time between slides and writing whenever I had time and watched the clock slowly tick towards 9:30. I looked up and saw the teacher end the last slide and counted the number of pages I took, 7 1/2 pages of notes, a new record for this class. I walked out of the class and once again conversed in trivial banter with the sophomore. I dropped my books by my backpack and walked around to morning meeting.

Morning meeting began the same as always. I placed down the word yearbook in the clubs section for announcements and took a seat with my friends. The student body president stood at the podium and called out teacher announcements and went around the teachers who had signed up. Then sports, and student announcements followed in the same fashion. He then announced clubs and a mentioned the name of our friendly club informant. He stood up and said hi everybody, and the student body responded Hi and the informant’s name. He announced the clubs meeting that day and took away part of my announcement. A few clubs were called before me and the president called out the word yearbook and I stood up. I spoke clearly over the crowd announcing Yearbook was meeting and that it is very important for photo staff to show up so we can give out your announcements. I sat down and watched the rest of announcements go by as morning meeting ended. I left the room and headed towards drawing.

I walked back up to the art center and into the drawing room. I grabbed my drawing box and opened it. I looked through my 4 different erasers and grabbed out two of them. I looked through my pencils and took out 4 of them and took out my sharpener. I walked towards the seat I was at for this drawing project. I looked at the image I was drawing and deemed it ready to start adding tone into it. I started to shade in the darkest regions and lightest regions. I heard the banter of classmates complaining about their drawings from the other class and passed it out of my mind. The teacher walked in and walked around the room helping kids see things they hadn’t quite understood before. I started to add in the different medium tones and thought about my 10 scale and finding where I could fit all 10 in. I remembered how the human eye can only see 6 tones of gray and wondered why they use 8 different grays when we can only see 6. As I pondered this, the teacher told me about something that I didn’t hear and responded ok, knowing he would tell me again later if I hadn’t fixed it. I looked at the clock and it read 11:20, and stood up. It was time to clean up and I packed my pencil box. I cleaned my hands in the sink and walked out of the class towards the office to sign out or lunch.

I arrived at the office before the rush came in and only needed to wait for 3-4 people before I could sign out. I signed out and meet up with my friends. We decided on a fast food place to get lunch, because we knew we could never make it back in time from a different type of place. We piled into a car and drove off. We arrived back at campus with food 20 minutes later and signed back in. We ate food on a bench in front of the library that was known as out bench and finished right before the period ended. I walked to my backpack to grab my books for statistics.

I arrived at statistics class 2 minutes before class and no one else had arrived yet. I had a short political discussion with the teacher trying to understand how he could choose her and how she could expect people to believe what she said. As the rest of the class filed in he responded with a simple, it doesn’t make sense. We began class talking about graphs and different types of curves. Sometime during the class someone figures a way to make a comment about one of the girl’s ACT tutor and we get sidetracked talking about her tutor. The teacher breaks us from the conversation quickly and we go back to statistics. We end class with new material that we will see in the homework and we walk out. I drop my books on top of my other books and walk up to clay.

I walk into clay and put on my old t-shirt and smock. The music starts and a sophomore and I start dancing, making fools of ourselves in front of the class not caring who sees. I add a side to my clay piece and we dance when we can’t work because we are waiting for something to take hold. The teacher chastises our choice in music but we don’t care. The teacher helps me attach part of the vessel that I couldn’t attach by myself. The class converses about nothing just to pass the time and pass it does. Class is coming to a close and we clean up all the clay and wipe everything down. I wash my hands and need to run to start the yearbook meeting.

I arrive in the computer lab late and everyone looks at me like they do every Monday and Thursday. I take attendance and give out assignments to the photo staff. I leave the layout staff to the design editor to do what she wants with them. I tell the text staff what their assignments are for the week and then meet with the editors to check in. We catch up on all work needed to be done and we finish anything we needed to finish from the last meeting. As the photo staff comes back with pictures we upload them and start sorting them. The clock strikes 3 and people disappear leaving me to clean everything up before we leave. I walk out 5 minutes later and pack my bag. I meet up with my friends and we walk down to our cars.

I arrive home 12 minutes later and come inside. I sit down and watch TV to relax before starting my homework for the day. I get up after 30 minutes or so and grab my bag and go to my room. I start with English and read my assignment for the next day. I then do my statistics problem before my mom calls to me for dinner. I walk upstairs and say hello to my brother who has just arrived home. We sit down and eat dinner while watching TV. An hour or so later I go back downstairs and read a few pages of art history. I then go into yearbook for the next 2 hours thinking about what needs to get done, who I need to meet with, and what my plan for the first semester is. My dad gets home later that night and I go up and talk to him for an hour or so. It is getting late so I head downstairs and get ready for bed. I lie down in my bed and fall asleep. . .

I walk out of the shower and dry myself off. I get dressed and walk upstairs. Its 7:05 and I put my shoes on. I sit down to breakfast, a burrito and begin eating and talking to my mom. She asked me, "do you plan on being home late today?" and I respond "I shouldn’t." It is now 7:15 and I am finishing my burrito. I finish and walk into the pantry. I take a swig of some orange juice and the pour myself a glass of water. Like clockwork I walk out of the house at 7:20 and my mom telling me "have a good day and to drive safe." I get into my car and say to myself, “Time to start my day.”

Insights Into Being 6 Feet Under

So we want to know how much land a man needs. It is put very simply in the story that all the land a man needs is 6 feet, from his head to his toes. But is it so simple as that. Is that all the land a man needs? Perhaps we should go back in history and examine the idea of a burial. The idea of a burial is in no way a new idea. Stemming back to the Neolithic era of 3,200 B.C.E. we see the idea of a grave. This grave is not just a pine box stuck in a plot of ground that we see today but it is called a passage grave. Men would create large gravesites with passages to a large burial chamber. These burial chambers were not simple 6-foot plots of land where they would bury a person but they were covered in cave art doing tribute to the lives lost. Perhaps we should skip forward a thousand years or so to the Egyptians. The great Pyramids of Gizeh are better known to be tombs for great pharaohs. These tombs are not only much longer than 6 feet but they enter the idea of going above land for burial. These men who were buried in these tombs not only deserved a glowing tribute in the length and width of their area, but the height as well. So these tombs are large, so why is it that we now believe men only need the amount of space they take up? Is it because we no longer have the grandeur that these men once had in comparison to the rest of the world? Or is it because we no longer have a sense that we deserve over the top embellishments just because of our title? I would say it is a combination of the two that stems our sense of equality among all men and that leads us to believe that we all deserve the same ending.

So 6 feet is all a man needs right? Wrong. 6 feet may be all a man needs in death today, but what about yesterday when he was alive? All a man needs in the earth below his feet and anywhere those feet can carry him. Perhaps that is why people used to be buried in such large monuments. There was no way to lay a man to rest and have it represent all the land a man needs while he was alive. They would build large burial chambers and large monuments to resemble the land they needed. If your feet could take you around the world, why should you only have 6 feet to show for it? The amount of space you take up on this earth once you have past may be only 6 feet, but for us who are living, there is on limit to the amount of land we need. And even if society no longer lets us show how much land we needed in life after death, we can be remembered for how much land we took up in death after life.

Insights Into The Miracle

In the play A Doll’s House the idea of a miracle is mentioned a couple of times. Nora, the play’s main character is the one who mentions this miracle. She believes that the only thing that can save her marriage with Torvald is a miracle. Now as it becomes more and more obvious as the plays goes further and further, the two are not meant to be. Nora believes that the miracle is that Torvald will reveal himself as the man she originally thought she married, not the one she is currently married to. Now my question is not weather or not she believed this miracle could come true, but rather if it was even possible for it to happen.


As the reader or viewer goes through the play, Torvald is slowly revealed to us. Torvald is the man that treats Nora like a child, but that was not unexpected of the time. Women were expected to act like Stepford wives, and no one complained. Nora on the other hand is quite different. In the Stepford Wives, Joanna starts as the independent wife who eventually becomes a Stepford wife. In this play the opposite affect happens. Nora starts as a Stepford wife and after witnessing her husband destroy her hope of a miracle, becomes independent and walks out on him. The relationship between Torvald and Nora is the picture perfect marriage at the time, but based on what we learn from Torvald, we find that there is never a chance that the miracle will come true. Torvald is consumed with the idea of honor. When he finds Nora has committed the crime of forgery, he is worried about himself instead of them as a couple. He figures that she would never leave because her proper duty as a wife is to her husband and children. He figures that her proper thing to do is to go and hide while he has to take care of the situations. It is because of these reactions that we understand why the miracle did not happen.


So was the miracle ever capable of even happening then. The answer is no. Its not because Nora expected too much of Torvald, but instead she expected him to know things about the situation he didn’t. Why would he react any different way when presented the situation? With his limited knowledge of the situation, there was no other way to react. We as readers and viewers forget that he doesn’t know why she forged the note, we forget that he doesn’t know she has been paying it off, we forget that he doesn’t know what his demands were. So why should she expect him to react any differently? Ibsen created her expectations knowing the viewer would forget his lack of knowledge of what has happened because he never wanted Torvald to get her back. Ibsen created the ending to side with Nora, even though she was in the wrong. We learn that the outcome has been predetermined when Ibsen chooses to have Nora not explain the situation before he reads the note, and sets the ending up where Nora expects Torvold to know everything she had told Christina. The real insight is that we should feel empathy towards Torvold, not Nora, because he reacted as anyone in his position would and his wife expected him to react based on knowledge she had clearly chosen not to give him prior to reading the note. When reading the play, I did side with Nora, but after examining Nora’s faults I feel more empathetic for Torvald who was dealt a bad hand by a dealer who had stacked the deck and was never even given the chance to let Nora see her miracle come true.

Insights into the Leader’s Fall

In the story Antigone the reader is presented with a conflict at the beginning of the story. There are two clear-cut sides, with no grey area. Antigone’s brother, a former kind, is dead and she wants to burry him. Creon, the king and Antigone’s Uncle, believes him to be a traitor and that he does not deserve to be given a proper burial. Antigone’s brother marched on the kingdom after he had been exiled and died in battle. The question presented is if Creon is making the right choice. Should Creon say attacking the city is ok by exalting him with a proper burial, or should he overstep his boundaries as a mortal ruler to affect the afterlife by not given him a proper burial? The answer is simple when looked at from an Antigone’s viewpoint or any common person’s viewpoint, but it is not so simple for Creon.

Creon must protect his kingdom, and that is what comes first and foremost. If he buries him, he is saying it is ok for people to attack his city, and that is not in the safety of the citizens. This is much like the war on Terror currently being waged by the United States. On September 11th, 2001 a terrorist organization named Al Qaeda attacked the United States. President Bush had to retaliate and quickly to not only show that the Untied States is not weak, but to assure the safety of our citizens. Initially we struck into Afghanistan, where the leader of Al Qaeda was, and it was the right decision. While we were in Afghanistan, President Bush may have overstepped his boundaries. He felt that his citizens were in danger due to the reported presence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. We began to wage war on Iraq, but was waging a war in Iraq the right thing to do. Was President Bush really protecting his citizens, or was it that Bush felt that it was his responsibility to wipe out all “terror” in the world? If the answer was so simple, Creon and Bush would have made the right decisions long before anything bad ever happened.

Creon needed to protect his kingdom, but he overstepped his boundaries by trying to punish someone who is dead. Bush needed to protect his country, but overstepped his boundaries when he took a single attack and made it into a global war. The decisions leaders make every day are some of the toughest in the world. Should a leader do something that is beyond his limits because he thinks it helps his country? The answer is yes, but most of the time that action doesn’t actually help the country. How does making a global war or not burying a former king help a country? It doesn’t, and if Creon and Bush had noticed that, they could have fixed their errors much earlier on and the whole world (in 2 different time periods) would have been happier. Sometimes showing a little humility and admitting defeat is more important that keeping your pride.

Insights into the aspects of color

Red is good. Red is bold. Red is my favorite color.  Now what does the color red have to do with a book?  Well that completely depends on the book of which you want me to explain its relevance to.  If you ask me what the color red describes in Harry Potter, well it is obvious.  It is the colors of the Gryffindor house upon which Harry resides.  Now if you ask me what the color red had to do with the book The Plot Against America, I will tell you it has nothing to do with the book.  But in truth a color is just the absence of everything else in our light spectrum.  That is unless you are speaking to Christopher Boone.  Christopher Boone is the protagonist in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time.  Christopher has Asperger's Syndrome and because he does not completely understand the workings of everyday life, he prefers to live with his days from a far more logical point of view.  Why is red important then?  Red is important because red is good and to Christopher red means good things.  An example of how Christopher's logic works is that if he sees 3 red cars in a row on the way to school it will be a "quite good day," 4 red cars is a "good day." and 5 red cars is a "super good day."  How does this make sense in a logical perspective?  Well how does Christopher believing if you see 4 yellow cars in a row tell you that it will be a "black day?'  To us it doesn't, but to him it does.

Why should we base whether today will be a good day or a bad day on things completely irrelevant to our daily lives?  Maybe it is true that we shouldn't do that, but we do it already.  The weather is the most common irrelevant thing that we base how our days are going to be.  How many times have you walked outside and it was raining and you said it is going to be a bad day because of it?  Well I know I have, but I don't work outside, so how does it affect me besides the time it takes me to get from point A to point B?  How many times have you gotten up and just felt it was going to be a bad day?  How is this a logical way to judge if our day is going to be bad because we are groggy when we wake up?  How many times have you said you were going to have a bad day because there was something you have to do that you aren't looking forward to?  Well I know it is very common to not look forward to something, but very rarely is it a reason to ruin your whole day for one thing.  The truth is that Christopher's way of thinking is much more logical that ours.

If something so irrelevant is going to decide how every day of our life is going to be, why not make it something you can manipulate?  Every year, for every type of car, there are more red cars purchased than yellow cars (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0855652.html).  So with this peace of information perhaps it is more logical to use something that you can manipulate to give you more good days than bad days.  Why should we be forced to judge our days by the hands of nature when we can set a precedent by the traits of other humans?