What a Character

I need to write a “conclusion to a body of two years' worth of work in AP English,” so no pressure right? Note my sarcastic tone, I am actually feeling an inordinate amount of pressure right now, pathos anyone? Perhaps some sympathy from kindhearted audiences? But let’s disembark the pity train, before this gets out of hand. After all, if AP English has taught me anything, it’s how to deal with pressure, so I can do this. I’ve met some real characters in AP English, some of them are classmates (a quick perusal of any of the quotes packets can attest to that), one of them is Ms. Serensky, and the rest are from the parade of literature which we tore apart Junior year. It is to these individuals that I would like to speak:

Harriet Jacobs: I am sorry that I berated you for eliciting my sympathy. In retrospect, this may not have been any sort of nefarious ploy; it was probably just due to the fact that you were a slave and lived in an attic for seven years. You did say you weren’t going to make me feel sorry for you, which was misleading and false. However, this was probably due more to the subject matter than to any sort of plotting or manipulation on your part. Sorry.

Dr. Finch (from Running With Scissors): I am not sorry for berating you, you are a bad father, husband, and doctor and that is all I have to say to you.

Truman Capote: What a “Tiny Terror,” the tales of your escapades will be with me forever, unfortunately, so will your tale of coldblooded murder, frankly, I am still pretty disturbed by it.

I also met some not-real characters this year:

Othello: How can such a good general have such train wreck-level horrifically bad judgment? It was a bad idea to listen to Iago, but it was an even worse idea to kill your wife over a handkerchief, not to mention the fact that the two of you were basically on your honeymoon at that point. Seriously, a handkerchief?

Gogol: I’m not going to yell at you Gogol, I really do feel bad that your wife cheated on you, and that she had a moustache, but mostly that she cheated on you.

Mr. Bunbury: Even though you are not real, you taught me about consonance and I am forever in your debt. Get well soon!

Miss Prism: Do not hire absent-minded romance novelists as nannies; I know it sounds like it would be fun right? But it’s not, resist the temptation.

Goodbye characters!

NOT the same thing as a baby

So Long, Farewell

If we all decided to perform an impromptu musical number on the last day of school and the cast from The Sound of Music dropped by, this is probably what would happen…

(All students)
There's a sad sort of clanging
From the bells in the hall
And the bells in the shared space, too
And up in the ward
An absurd little bird
Is popping out to say coo-coo
(Coo-coo, coo-coo)

(Brigitta, Gretel, Marta) (Fredrick, Leisel, Kurt, Louisa)
coo-coo Regretfully it tells us
coo-coo But firmly it compels us
to say goodbye
coo-coo
(All)
To School

(Students)
So long, farewell
Auf Wiedersehen, goodbye
(Marta)
I hate to go and leave Serensky’s sight

(Students)
So long, farewell
Auf Wiedersehen, adieu
(Fredrick)
Adieu, adieu
To you and you and you

(Students)
So long, farewell
Au revoir, Auf Weidersehen
(Leisel)
I'd like to stay
Now could that be arranged?
(Talking to the Ms. Serensky) yes?
(Ms. Serensky) no!

(Students)
So long, farewell
Auf Weidersehen, goodbye
(Kurt)
I leave and heave
A sigh and say goodbye
Goodbye

(Brigitta)
I'm glad to go
I cannot tell a lie
(Louisa)
I drop, my books
I quickly flee, I fly

(Gretel)
The seniors have gone
To Springfest and so must I

(Students) So long, farewell
Auf Weidersehen, goodbye

Goodbye
Goodbye
Goodbye

Do You Have What It Takes?

Do you have too much time on your hands?  Is your social life just a bit too full? Are you ready to work like an ox? Then step up and join the few, the proud, the AP English Oxen! You’ll do your share of griping and complaining but you will eventually develop a strange love-hate relationship with AP English, and I guarantee you will not regret your choice. These are some of the things that make up for the all the hard work and long hours…

1.      Quotes! Maybe you’ve seen them around the school before, if you haven’t, your life is not yet complete

2.      Emerging from the “depths of mental midgetry”

3.      Someday you will get a sticker, perhaps it will be Harry Potter themed, or maybe it will tell you “you’re special” (you should be so lucky), either way the excitement you feel as an upperclassman will rival anything you experienced upon receiving a sticker as a small child.

4.      It’s better than spending 7 years in an attic

5.      You will watch a Leonardo DiCaprio movie (Ms. Serensky has a crush on him)

6.      Multiple Choice Games: the rivalry, the trash talking, the enthusiastic cheering!

7.      Because you need a way to fill all that spare time, remember, idle hands are the devil’s playground!

8.      Come AP week, you will be ready for the test; it’s a good feeling to walk out of that room with a feeling of confidence, rather than dismay.

9.      Learning to be a writer, the most important part of AP English

10.  Blogs! They’re surprisingly fun and a welcome break from formal writing assignments

Sarcasm aside, AP English is worth every minute of work, if you had the chance to completely overhaul your abilities as a writer and literary analyst before college, why wouldn’t you take it?

 

A Meeting of Three Men Who Are Not Friends

Two men gather outside the Rec Center, clearly intrigued by the goings on inside, though they maintain an awkward silence between themselves. At last, a third man arrives and finally breaks the ice…

Randall Patrick McMurphy: “Good mornin’, buddies” (Kesey 11)

Lane: “sir” (Wilde 1)

(Clive gives only an indignant look, mutters about a shocking degree of informality among the fans)

Randall Patrick McMurphy: “Hooeee…look what we got here,” I reckon that could be an AP English Language and Lit-ra-ture Exam (Kesey 23)

Lane: “I have had very little experience of it myself” (Wilde 1)

Clive Linley: Well I’m sorry to hear that, but “there [must be] a certain level of achievement, a gold standard, that [is] nonnegotiable, beyond mere opinion” so I take great interest in these things (McEwan 143)

Randall Patrick McMurphy: Looks like she’s writin’ somethin’ “is this the usual pro-cedure?” (Kesey 57)

Clive Linley: Yes, it is an essay, but “do you think the whole piece is hanging together well? Structurally, I mean?” (McEwan 175)

Lane: “it is not a very interesting subject” (Wilde 2)

Clive Linley: “it [would] …be going too far to say [she is]…a genius [like myself]” (McEwan 143)

Randall Patrick McMurphy: Speakin’ of “structurally” all them rows look “like a Chinese prison camp” (66).

Lane: “Yes” (Wilde 1)

Randall Patrick McMurphy: “I’ll bet you two dollars here and now that [she’ll finish in time]” (Kesey 14)

Clive Linley: Hardly, “I mean, to [write] that way, with no awareness, like an animal” (McEwan 5)

Lane: "I don’t think it polite [to say so], sir” (Wilde 1)

Clive Linley: “Kindly bugger off...If you don’t go away I shall smack your stupid face” (McEwan 178)

Lane: “I do my best to give satisfaction, sir” (Wilde 18) (stalks off, clearly offended)

                                           

The party disperses and McMurphy calls after the other two that an early forfeit means they have to pay him double.

                                               Meet the Cast

Randall Patrick McMurphy

Lane

Clive as he sees himself

Clive as everyone else sees him

 

And The Winner Is...

      “It might not be going too far to say that he was…a genius,” then again, it definitely wouldn’t be going too far to say he was an egomaniac, and Vernon Halliday would have no qualms about saying he was “insane” (McEwan 143)(McEwan 161). What a guy, there’s clearly a lot going on there, and if you feel a compulsive need to analyze everything, then I must suggest that you “run nerds, RUN!” before we get into some of Clive Linley’s finer moments (Ms. Serensky).  Delusional and selfish, Clive has only one love in his life, his symphony, it is to be his crowning glory, the defining moment of his career, except “Half the BSO [Boston Symphony Orchestra] refuse to play it” (McEwan 190). I could almost feel bad for the guy, if only he were capable of feeling bad for someone else. But his actions in the Lake District destroyed all hope of that, so I’ve adopted a mixed bag of indignation at his moral littleness and delighted amusement at his absurdities. Together with his old friend/mortal enemy Clive embarks on a journey to fill the “void…that only revenge could fill” (McEwan 173). The question is, how exactly can a book with two despicable main characters, bent on the destruction of the other, which culminates in a ruthless double murder be my favorite? Am I a terrible person? No, I am not, Ian McEwan is just a good writer, he crafts two characters with so little moral fiber and so much blind, self-deluding egotism that no matter what they do, you have to laugh. And so, without further ado, I would like to present the prestigious Kaleigh O. Best Book of AP English 12 Award to… Amsterdam!

And Now For My Personal Favorites

1.      My freshman year started off with a bang, and by that I mean a man in an oversized blouse and skinny jeans that laced up the side took to the stage in the brand new PAC playing an electric violin. Yes, the 6-12 orchestra students put on a concert with Mark Wood, an original member of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. His dramatic performance style has made a lasting impression on the orchestra and he is referenced frequently in class, where he is thought of as “a man without…faults” (McEwan 32). 

2.      Now I don’t mean to diminish the excellent performance of the choir at Springfest last year, but I’m afraid they really couldn’t compete with the Frisbee infomercial, let alone the Gladiators dance team of years past, “What consummate artistry!” (McEwan 136). 

3.      On a more sincere note, I really enjoyed starting AP classes. The workload took a bit of adjusting to, but I distinctly remember driving home during the first week of Junior year and realizing that I had not once felt like my time was being wasted. It was, in every sense of the word, thrilling. I don’t wish to convey the sentiment that non-AP classes are always a “serious failure,” but they are often filled with people who just don’t care very much, which is frustrating (McEwan 138).

4.      This next item didn’t happen during the school year, but it is closely tied to my academic career. While on summer vacation I received the news that I had passed my AP tests.  It was such a relief, I had been living in fear that I would fail one or more of them and then not be able to look that teacher in the eye for the ensuing year, it would have been completely “demoralizing” (Wilde 1).

5.      I know without a doubt that I will miss “Dear Journal,” these moments are undoubtedly among the highlights of AP English. I have especially enjoyed the evolution of the “Dear Journal” voice; apparently Thomas’s journaling persona is a British woman, “It’s delightful” (Wilde 9).

6.      I have to mention our Othello field trip, Ms. Serensky seemed a little surprised when she announced it and we all broke into applause, I don’t think she realized what a big deal it was. Now that we are in High School, we hardly ever go on field trips, it seems like a little thing but it’s good to break schedule every now and then and have a day “full of excitement” (Kesey 255).

7.      The Blogs themselves have been an incredible experience, when I think back to “that very first week” of the project I remember how anxious I felt, but I now have much more confidence as a writer (Kesey 323). Some favorite moments from the blogging experience are my “Déjà Vu” blog, which is the first time I really had fun writing a post as well as discovering how much fun it is to find pictures for all my posts.

8.      By reading the list thus far you might have gotten the idea that AP English has dominated my academic life, and you would be correct. Much like the ‘“Combine”’ it takes over both the “Inside” and the “Outside,” that is, the class itself and everything outside of class (Kesey 28). Nonetheless I have taken other classes and they deserve some mention. A moment that stands out is when I finished the related rates packet I had to do over Winter Break for Calculus. It took a while but when I finally worked through the whole thing I felt like I was on top of the world, I’ve heard it described as a “math high,” I think that is apt.

9.      Of course, I will return to AP English now. I loved writing the Amsterdam essay, even though Ms. Serensky totally freaked me out by piling on the pressure and expectations, once I got down to the actual writing it was an enjoyable experience, to borrow from the previous list item, it was an “English high.” To top it all off, I got a sticker on that essay (my reaction: “Good Heavens!”), which doesn’t happen to me very often and pretty much made my week (Wilde 8).

10.  For my final item I want to return to the Blog project. I would say my blog has a very limited following and I never get more than a few comments. My moment of shining glory came when I blogged about Sarah Pe. Ross for her birthday, I had eight comments, my page-views shot up, and someone who isn’t even in AP English talked to me about my blog! It was pretty exciting, but I guess I owe my fifteen minutes of fame to Sarah’s ability to pose like a “bull goose loony” in pictures (Kesey 21).





This is Just to Say...

This Is Just to Say

I love this poem

more than

all the rest

of the poems

I loved

the new versions

we wrote

“What a lesson” (Wilde 26)

Forgive me

our Cassio poem

shocked

and offended

It was truly an “intellectual pleasure” to compose a version of this poem from Cassio’s point of view; I had so much fun writing it with my group (Wilde 21). Unfortunately, when we read it, we got some looks of shock and dismay from the class at large, maybe it was our description of Cassio’s “friend” Bianca. Regardless of the lack of critical acclaim, it was one of those rare occasions where you could be “utterly absurd” and still learn (Wilde 30).

Bianca and Cassio