a few weeks ago I watched Good Will Hunting for the first time, yes, I am well aware I’m a few centuries late to watching it. Mostly on the weekends (because I don’t have time on school days), I watch movies with my dad, Interstellar is next, I can’t wait! If you are like me and have been living under a rock for a while and you don’t know the movie, it’s about a guy named Will, he’s a really smart kid but he doesn’t exactly have anything exciting going on. He’s a janitor at this school and this really difficult problem gets put up in the halls on a board, when Will solves it, the teachers try to get through to him but can’t so they try to get a therapist to help him loosen up and help him (The 4th and last therapist was Robin Williams!). Each session goes on and they get more and more in depth with talk about romance, relationships, deaths, weird stuff like that, maybe I’m into light romance type movies? Not too sure… One thing I really like about movies though is when they bring a quote or action from the start of the movie and reintroduce it at the end. Good Will Hunting did EXACTLY that. Will’s therapist is telling him that he missed out on a great baseball game to “go see about a girl”. Then at the end of the movie, Will decided to go chase this girl he recently had a fight with, he missed the therapy lesson but left a note saying, “I gotta go see about a girl”. Sweet things like that, that I like. Also the way the therapist worded a lot of things, it had deep meanings it was a great movie, awesome movie (I might watch more like that, I’ll be in touch!).
Author: Ryan
My reflection of “The Moral Equivalent of War” and “Can Real Men Live in a Peaceful Society”
In The Moral Equivalent of War I see that William James assumes that men have this, war-like urge in them that can not be fought back. He believes in wanting peace but he says “Our ancestors have bred pugnacity into our bone and marrow, and thousands of years of peace won’t breed it out of us…”, which says that we are born with a set of a sense of brutal, strong, dominance. That the history has shaped our human nature and engraved it into our future along with another quote near the end, “The martial type of character can be bred without war…”. William James is basically saying that with or without war, men are eager savages at heart, they can develop these traits throughout their journey, both good and bad, they can learn discipline and courage along with venerating savagery. Next, in Can Real Men Live in a Peaceful Society, Macknight describes how textbook chivalry has been destroyed due to social media, as men would brush off a “woman in peril”. He also says how men in the bourgeoise society have become too… Soft, after the war as if all that hardness disappeared. Then stated that women in the bourgeoise society would look for these so called “bad boys” just to come to the realization that they are terrible people, mean and brutal men that couldn’t live in a peaceful society. Something I feel worth mentioning is that I was pretty surprised to see but it was said that people were thinking to castrate violent, out of line men, just like they do dogs, to try and tame them again.
IRJE#2 Catcher in the Rye
I must say that I’ve really loved this book. Mr. MacKnight, thank you for sharing this book with me it has been a great one. Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger is about a guy, Holden, he’s an adult although seems to be disconnected from the adulthood world. He struggles academically, struggles with being social, struggles with being normal altogether. I have two quotes, one on his social awkwardness and another on his sadness or depression.
When I opened the door, this prostitute was standing there… “You the guy Maurice said?” she asked me… “Yes, I am. Come in, won’t you?” I said…
She put down the menu and looked at me. “Let’s go, hey. I haven’t got all-”
“Look” I said. “I don’t feel very much like myself tonight. I’ve had a rough night. Honest to God. I’ll pay you and all, but do you mind very much if we don’t do it? Do you mind very much?”
This quotation has Holden getting in contact with a prostitute but instead of doing what any normal guy would do he asks if they can just talk. it show his distance with adulthood, fear of being vulnerable, and his desire for connection and attention (hiring a prostitute to only have a conversation to connect).
Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.
In this quotation it shows Holden’s bad habit of isolation, pushing everybody away to protect himself from emotional damage, which basically means that the odd regrets of having memories with people makes him vulnerable and easily hurt. It also showed a little character development, I think, because despite all the bad memories, arguments, and what not that Holden had with everyone, he still remains sad, and missing them, showing his development in viewing the positive side of things at the end of his story.
PW#2 My experience with the ceremony
I didn’t exactly have a straight idea on what to write about, so instead I thought why not share my experience on the Remembrance Day Ceremony? To start it off though I was already really damn scared about it because probably like most people, I hate going up and speaking in front of multiple people, it makes me feel my heart in my throat and feel a heartbeat in my head. From the beginning one of my partners weren’t showing and I needed them for a slide and since I was already a bit vulnerable it gave me a heart attack (not actually), and then math marks got brought up, checked my grade and in the moment I thought I got low grades for a test I was confident, later I found out he put the marks on the wrong test (thank GOD), but in the moment that made my day even worse, panicking more.
Then around came the ceremony, my partners were there, all I had to do was walk up there and read but I was so nervous, practically shaking! when I walked up on that stage I was shocked to see how many people were actually there, how many people were staring dead blank at me, how many people were there to see every little mistake, it scared me so much I kind of found it funny how many minion sized people there were. After doing my part I came to the realization that it wasn’t too hard to do but that doesn’t suppress the mass anxiety haha. Once we finished, my god you can not imagine the happiness of being done with that, god it felt GREAT!
IRJE#1 “YOU”
You is a book made by Caroline Kepnes. She made I believe four books on this series and it got changed into a show on Netflix as well! That’s where I got the idea to read it. I recently finished the book as well and I hope to find the second, called Hidden Bodies. This book is about a guy named Joe Goldberg, Joe is a psychopath and he stalks and woman he is into.
You are dead.
I dig. I have never been and will never be as alone as I am while I dig… I, alone, sweat and shiver and prepare to put you into the dirt… I am breathing normally now and the revelers are doing the Electric Slide and would we have had a wedding like this? (p. 415-416)
In this quotation (or his thoughts), he is obsessing over a woman named Guinevere Beck, his first love obsession. Earlier on, Beck found out that Joe had been stalking her, and killing people around her (friends, ex’s, etc), and even found out that some of her “lost” possessions were taken by him. Joe put her in a cage not knowing what to do with her because she would most likely go to the police if she got out. At one point she manipulated Joe into thinking she loved him, and she tried to escape but Joe stopped her. Not wanting to risk anything, he killed her. Then in the quotation you can find how his emotions of his words are describing his actions as if he was forced to kill her, not by choice.
PW#1 Horne Lake!
Yes Blake, I’m writing about this, I loved it. I’ve been wanting to write a personal writing for a bit because I can say whatever I’d like no instructions. Now, I get to talk about my trip to Horne Lake, along with my date, Blake. I don’t get the chance to travel too much because of you know, money. So when I went to Horne Lake, it. Was. Beautiful. The views that we went to see, the things that we did, amazing. I thought I would be somewhat bored there, nope. It was full of activity and it was amazing. Sometimes me and Blake would sit in our trailer (We shared it!) and I would pull out some mini sour cream donuts and some drinks, and we would just sit and chat haha. My favorite part was Blake taking me to high mountain places pretty far away using his Wolverine (the vehicle not the hero)! I love drives like that I don’t know why. Going somewhere random on bumpy rides are fun for me (apart from when I got brutally impaled by dry branches, BLAKE haha). We went to such cool places, with amazing views of the entire lake. I would kill to go back there just me and Blake. we even went out on the water and visited a cave nearby, a giant spider lurked in there, I wanted out, fast. We went to some islands, and man it was amazing, who knew a cabin in the woods would be the best thing ever. I won’t reveal the secrets of everything there, but that was the best time I’ve had in a long while. Now Blake all I ask, is please let me go back in winter, I wanna walk or drive across the lake!
WWI Readings, Personal Response
After reading through the World War One books, All Quiet On The Western Side And the readings part 1 and part 2 with Barthas, Chevallier, and some others, it has been brought to my attention how insanely brutal war is.
I have been wanting to read the famous All Quiet On The Western Front for quite some time now because I was always curious to learn about the war, what it was like, and its effects. One thing I didn’t expect to find though, was the mental effect on the soldiers as it’s somewhat described in the book. It describes how Paul’s mental state adapts to the war and becomes very different from what we would see now. As like when multiple soldiers got killed, Paul and his group focused on the fact they would have more rations. It also explains the effects of the fighting, like as when Paul killed the Frenchman and went through his things to find out that he had a family, it made him feel guilty and scared.
The World War One readings were good to read as they described with more visuals, mental side effects, and the looks of war. The readings, gave me a visual of how it was having dead bodies around every corner, rotting and smelling like hell. It also explained common side effect of trauma, known as shell shock, caused from artillery, and what happened as soldiers watched their friends get pummeled by dropping shells or gunned down in front of them. it also explained more in depth with tactics of crawling around at night and little hidden details that most things might not teach you.
Overall I liked reading and learning about the first world war. especially how at near the end of part 2 of the prose, it explained how the soldiers didn’t pay enough attention to the small things they had like warmth in their house, comfy couches, a bed, so that once they were transferred to the front lines, they finally found out what absolute hell was and missed their home greatly. Although, I apologize but I must say, I enjoyed the book a lot more than the prose, not even because I was already wanting to read it, but because it had a plot, where the prose didn’t follow much of one. Reading these expanded my knowledge which will most likely help in I & S, and it made the soldiers have a certain significance to me after learning the terror they had to go through.
Ryan’s World!
Welcome to Ryan’s World of wonders and imagination. I am from here, Victoria, and I am a returning student from Brookes and this is my 4th year, going on 5th. To get to know me, some things I really enjoy are TV, watching shows more on the side of murder, like Dexter which portrays the main character as a serial killer that is a part of Miami Metro Homicide, I highly recommend watching this. I also enjoy going on walks out in the sun or just walk in general. Night walks are good too but I’m usually quite tired. Up at my mom’s though there is a dirt pile/construction site and I love to go up there, get drenched in sand and climb some construction vehicles. I also enjoy doing Tennis with my parents late at night around 8:00pm. My all time favorite thing to do though is video games, yes I’m one of those people haha. I have both a VR (Quest 3) and a PC, my preferred genre of game is fighting, action and adventure. Sadness and deep cuts are also a must for the games. Now onto the writing tasks on here, here’s my stunning opinion, ‘Personal Writing’ on the blog is the best because I can talk about whatever I’d like, and someone has the chance of coming across it and reading it, same as you are! I also love to listen to music, if you hadn’t noticed haha. I do everything with my headphones or background music, my music taste I admit, is very limited since I’m weird and I loop songs. A lot. My favorite bands that I consistently listen to multiple music from, would be Coldplay and Red Hot Chili Peppers!! I’m gonna bring this up because I love it but I have really high hopes for the Tofino trip in April (my birth month!) and I hope everyone, or most of our class goes because me personally that trip was the BEST. My patience is running very thin with the long wait. And to Blake and Sydney, let’s recreate the breakfast hazard… I hope to learn some random facts about you all and I hope new students here enjoy their time and maybe come back next year.