Author: Sydney

PW #6 – Mr. Macknight Writing prompt 2

“Which season of the year do you like best? Why?”

In my own personal opinion, I think that winter is the best season of the year.

Now, to compare winter to other seasons, I will start with summer. Summer is a nice season overall, but it is super difficult to get to a comfortable temperature when it is always so hot out. In the summer, you can take off your shirt and still be hot. Whereas in the winter, if it is too cold out, you can just put on clothes to warm up. Some may argue that you can do a lot of different stuff in the summer, but winter also has the same qualities. In winter, you can go skiing, snowboarding, sledding, or other winter sports which is much better than what summer has to offer. Along with this, winter is the only time that there is snow, which gives something to look forward to because the snow looks great in photography; and the snow lining the peaks of the mountains makes the mountains look more visually appeasing then how they look during summer. Not only this, but if there is enough snow, it makes everything much more quiet, which is a rather calming. Overall, winter has many better qualities than summer, but what about other seasons? Nothing very interesting happens during fall, it is just heavy rain all the time and the only unique thing is the trees having different color leaves. Spring looks quite visually appeasing, also making it good for photography. But winter has these exact same qualities, with even more extra stuff than spring. So to conclude, winter is the best season of the year.

IRJE #5 – Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

Ishmael is a philosophical novel created by Daniel Quinn, which dives into the ideas of how culture influenced modern civilization through evolution, and it is done through the use of the narrator talking to a telepathic gorilla, whose name is Ishmael. Most of the book is structured through conversation, similar to Socratic literature. I found the way Socratic literature is structured has drawn my attention to the book more, and so far, Ishmael has set quite a good precedent for this type of literature. It is a good concept, which I would like to see more in books. Ishmael has many themes, the main themes of the book are ethics, sustainability, and mythology.

“Again…. Our policy is: Every square foot of this planet belongs to us, so if we put it all under cultivation, then all our competitors are just plain out of luck and will have to become extinct. Our policy is to deny our competitors access to all the food in the world, and that’s something no other species does.”

“Bees will deny you access to what’s inside their hive in the apple tree, but they won’t deny you access to the apples” (p. 134)

This quotation highlights how humans are inherently different from other species, and rather than taking what they need, they take all of it. After this is highlighted in the first part of this quotation, we then get a metaphor about bees. This metaphor in it’s literal meaning, means: Other species will not allow you to take what they require to survive, but they will allow you to take what they do not. By providing an example of humans, compared to an example of other species, this quotation brings to light the contrast in behavior between humans and other species; which reinforces one of the main themes in the book, being: “The world was made for humans”.

PW#5 – Mr. Macknight personal writing prompt thing

“What’s more important: being healthy or having lots of money? Explain why you think so”

From my perspective, having lots of money is a much better alternative to being healthy because, well, put simply: you can buy stuff to make you healthy. But that is likely not the main focus of the question, I believe the question is saying: “you can only choose one”. So, in that case, I believe that being healthy is more important than having lots of money.

One example of this in history was Henry the VIII. Who was the king of England. He had a large amount of money, obviously being a king, but he was extremely unhealthy. He was severely overweight, and although this was preventable. He is an example of how money cant make you healthy. Being unhealthy also causes risks of having an illness which is not preventable. Which even money cant fix.

Along with the the risk of severe illness, happiness is also something that money cant buy. A common counter to this argument is: “You can just buy something that makes you happy”, although this is a true argument, that happiness is always going to be temporary, which is not something that is associated with being healthy. Being healthy means you are consistently happy due to a good mental state, which will always prevail in the face of temporary happiness.

To conclude, being healthy is better than having a lot of money, because being healthy means you are less likely to get a severe illness, and being healthy means you are happier overall.

 

PW #4 – Arizona Part 4 – Grand Canyon

Here we are for the fourth time, on the same story.

On day 5, my mom took me to the grand canyon. The drive to the grand canyon from pheonix was around 2 hours long, I should’ve been able to sleep, but as I have discovered, it is extremely difficult for me to fall asleep on something that is not a bed. So the 2 hours of the drive were spent of me attempting to fall asleep and failing.

Once I was able to see the grand canyon, its size was completely overwhelming; the same could be said about its height. As I walked along the edge, it was quite confusing to look to the right and see nothing moving, the grand canyon looked as if it was painted across the sky. An incredible scene of red, orange, and yellow paints splashed across a colossal sized canvas. It was the quintessence of “nature”, an incredible canyon formed over millions of years through erosion. Being there was an honor in of itself, it was easy to see why it was considered one of the “wonders of the world”. The only thing taking away a partial amount from how incredible this scene was, was the intense heat. The sun felt like a laser beam shining all of its power directly on me, but it was probably only because I’m Canadian and it never gets hot in Canada.

Overall, seeing the grand canyon was one of the most memorable moments of my life. if I had to option to see it again, i would say yes, and for anyone who wants to go to see it, but is hesitant. I say take the opportunity.

PR to “Brave new World”

Brave New World By Aldous Huxley, is an “intriguing” book, to say the least, and this is not in a good way. Personally, I did not enjoy brave new world. I felt like it went overboard in the overall themes of sex, and this made the author seem controversial and “strange”. Starting off, this book went “overboard” with the ideas of sex, The whole point of the book right from the get-go was that it took place in a society where sexual thoughts and sex in general were frowned upon, considered bad, and reproduction was automated. But throughout the book we see several moments that disprove this, For example, early on in the book, we hear some people say that nurse Linda is “charming”, in a sexual way. Yet this should never have happened due to the whole idea that sexual thoughts and ideas are considered bad. This pattern is seen consistently throughout the book. This makes the reader think that Aldous Huxley is a man with consistent “sexual urges” that cant seem to control them in his writing. To add on to this pattern of going overboard with sex in the story, at one moment, the author visualizes children “playing with each other”, in a sexual way. This is a detail that none of us needed to see, and makes us think that the author may be rather controversial. I don’t know if this has changed in the “future” of this story, but I don’t think children are usually able to feel sexual pleasure until they are 10 at minimum, and in this story it is suggested they are much younger than 10. I will leave it up to the reader of this personal response to take away from that what they can. In my opinion, this book would have been more enjoyable if the author included less sexual themes, but didn’t omit them fully from the story. I think the saying: “Less is more”, is something that the author could’ve taken into account, and I believe it would’ve drastically improved his book.

Overall, I did not enjoy this book, and it could have been better if Aldous Huxley included less “sexual” themes, because this work of literature made by him makes Huxley seem like a man who cant control his sexual urges.

 

IRJE #3 – My Side of the Mountain

“My Side of the Mountain” By Jean Craighead George is a book about a young boy named Sam Gribley, who runs away from New York to go live on his grandfather land. While out there he discovers several wild animals which he befriends. The animals being The Baron (A weasel), and Frightful, (A Falcon).

“September Blazed a trail into the mountains. First she burned the grasses. The grasses seeded and were harvested by the mice and the winds. Then she sent the squirrels and chipmunks running boldly through the forest, collecting and hiding nuts. Then she frosted the aspen leaves and left them sunshine yellow. Then she gathered the birds together in flocks, and the mountaintop was full of songs and twitterings and flashing wings. The birds were ready to move to the south. And I, Sam Gribley, felt just wonderful, just wonderful” (P. 85 – 86)

I find this quote interesting because of its very descriptive way of describing how September is coming, by characterizing the month, September as an actual living person. The use of words in this quotation provide an excellent source for imagining the scene visually.

 

PW #3 – Arizona Part 3

It was day 4 in Arizona. On day 4 out of 6 of being in Arizona, me and my friend had plans to go to a go karting place. Once we arrived, it took quite a while before it was our turn. To pass the time we ate some of the food there. I can’t quite recall what I ate, but I think it was pretzel sticks. After we ate, it was our turn to do go karting. I had never done it before, and we had three rounds to do it. The moment I started driving the kart I thought it was kind of fast, but after about 10 seconds I realized it was much slower than I imagined. To me it felt like a speed of around 20 – 40 km/h, I was unsure. In the first round, I ended up placing 4th for fastest lap time, while my friend on the other hand ended up placing first. At the time, I thought it was because I was stuck behind a bunch of slow drivers, which could’ve been the case, but after reviewing some photos that my parents took, I realized it was because my foot was on the brake the entire time, which similarly happened to my friend the first time he went go-karting. My friend placed 1st, and I placed 4th for every single round after that. I blamed the result on the fact that I had my foot on the brake the whole time. After the go-karting was over, my friend and I decided to play some of the arcade games, where I destroyed him 10 – 2 in air hockey. After this, my mom had plans to take me to the Grand Canyon the next day, not with my friend because he had stuff to do.   

Reflection on “The moral equivialent of war” and “Can real men live in a peaceful society?”

 

In “The moral equivalent of war”, William James asserts that modern men want to fight in war because of their eagerness to prove themselves to their ancestors; that “our ancestors have bred pugnacity into our bone and marrow” (Line 17), and “thousands of years of peace won’t breed it out of us” (Line 18). William is claiming here that men are inherently “violent”, and it is extremely difficult to drive this away from them; that war will happen and will continue to happen due to this “driving force” to prove themselves to their ancestors. This ties in to the ideas conveyed in “Can real men live in a peaceful society?”, Where MacKnight claims that earlier men performed large amounts of physical labour, that the early man was “Ready at a moment’s notice to use his fists or pick up a weapon to wield against enemies or wild beats;” (Pg. 2). That this is still instilled in men nowadays, and in some cases may be the reason for the very common amounts of “Violence” shown in a sexual demeanor. MacKnight claims that “The ladies of Eleanors of Aquitaine’s court”, “Invented chivalry to tame the violence of the men around them”, he makes a connection to how a dog may be castrated if its violence is untrainable, and makes a remark that the idea of castration could be used on men in current society who act out in terms of their “Violent behavior”. To conclude, “violence” has been instilled within men throughout history as a way to show glory for their ancestors, but this way to show glory has devolved over time and became a very negative thing for a small group of men, and this way to show glory needs to be removed.

PW #2 – Arizona Part 2

On day 2 of being in Arizona I didn’t actually do that much. The most that happened during that day was me and my mom went over to the waterpark. The waterpark was pretty interesting, when I walked up to go to the waterslide there was a very tall cactus that my mom kept insisting, I take a picture of her next to. On day 3 of being in Arizona; me and my friend went to the mall. The mall there reminded me of Mayfair a little bit. But it was much bigger. There were also many more plants scattered around the mall than at Mayfair. The name of the mall was the Chandler Fashion Center. The first thing me and my friend did was go over to Zumiez to check out the clothes they had there. I tried to use my debit card to pay for it; but it did not work across the countries. And I was about to pay so I did not have time to fix it. I ended up having my mom giving me her credit card and just paying her the money back later. At Zumiez, I bought a shirt with a Mazda Rx-7 on it, and the other one had a Nissan. My friend did not buy anything because he did not want to spend too much money. After this, me and my friend went over to a diecast car shop, and we looked at some of the cars there. I saw one that said “1 in 5”, and mistakenly thought that it meant it was a 1 in 5 in the whole world. I only realized after I got home that it was a 1 in 5 in the set. The mall was honestly one of my favorite parts of the trip. But it only got better from there. To be continued in part 3…….

   

IRJE #1 – The Man Who Was Poe

The book: The Man Who Was Poe, written by Avi, is a story about the main character, Edmund attempting to search for his missing Aunt, Sister and Mother. When he bumps into a man whose name is Dupin; feeling sympathetic for Edmund, he offers his guidance to him. As Edmund and Dupin are working to discover what happened, Edmund realizes that the most likely scenarios are that they all died. 

“Story of a search . . . boy searching for vanished sister . . . wants her to be alive . . . of course . . . no tension there . . . to be effective must be a puzzle . . . is she alive? . . . Enter Dupin . . . Who took her? . . . much confusion . . . but then, boy finds that . . . One can find life only through death. I know. My sis is dead too. (PG. 80) 

This quote on page 80 serves as a sort of recap of the plot of this story. This quote has two lines which I find very intriguing. the first being “To be effective must be a puzzle.”. I believe that this small section of text means in plain language that in order to succeed you must solve all the problems you are faced with. I believe that this is the most likely meaning of this sentence, but there is a large possibility that it could be conveying other messages Aswell. The second line which I found interesting, was “One can find life only through death”. My interpretation of this quote is that one can only strive after going through what feels like death. but there are many other explanations of this. Another interpretation of this quote is the possibility that “death” in this sense could mean the death of your old self. So, one can only find change by killing their old self. Overall, I think this quote was remarkably interesting and was a puzzle in of itself. 

PW #1 – Arizona Part 1

The moment we stepped outside it felt like a blowdryer. The temperature at the time was around 45 degrees Celsius. Arizona reminded me of the wild west from those cowboy movies, Although we were in the heart of the city, there was nearly no grass that could be seen. Where grass would be in Canada, there were rocks in Arizona. We decided to take the sky train over to the parking lot where we would rent our car. While we were finding the car that we rented; I felt like I was going to die from the heat. And to make matters worse, the car we rented was a ford, and the dashboard was extremely confusing for my mom; who said it was like a space ship. Along the drive to our hotel, we could see cacti sitting all across the sandy hills which streched on for what seemed like miles. After some time we eventually got to our hotel, which had an old desert architecture look to it. The architecture was beautiful, The buildings were very square, and the windows had distinct arch shapes to them. There were tall palm trees standing all around the resort. Later during the day, my friend came over to see me. At first we went to the pool and chilled out a little bit. After this we went inside an played some games. I had my slides resting on the side of the pool; and I genuinely expected the heat to melt them, but to my relief they didn’t. It was around 6:00 or later from what I remember. When we went inside we had some of the pizza from the hotel, which was delicious. The first day was pretty fun overall; besides the travelling. The thing about the heat in Arizona is the fact that you don’t need to use a clothes dryer and you can just hang your clothes out in the heat and they will dry in an hour or less.

my introduction awawaawa

My name is Sydney and I have ADHD, I was born here, in Victoria and I am a returning student to Brookes Westshore. I have been going to Brookes Westshore since last year. Currently, I am 14 years old and I will be turning 15 in October. I have 2 cats at home; who are both abyssinian, and I have had them for almost as long as I have been alive. My parents got them when I was 6 months old.

At home; I enjoy playing video games, mainly racing games. And I use a wheel with pedals. My favourite games are Iracing & Beamng Drive. Recently I built a scale replica of a car cockpit out of wood, which I play racing games with. It is completed; but I made a few changes recently, and I am going to add an adjustable seat to it. I also have plans to build a cabinet as well, as I want to improve my woodworking skills. At home; sometimes I will go on walks. Sometimes during the day I will go up and walk along the E&N railway; which is an abandoned railway that is connected to my neighborhood. It goes on for 289 Kilometers; but I have only walked around 5 Kilometers.

I enjoy music in general, one of the things I do is create music; which I have been doing for 4 years. The programs I have been using have not been the best; but recently I bought FL studio, which is the best music software that you can buy. Although it was very expensive, it was worth it as the quality the music I produce is now better. I also enjoy art. Personally I do not practice art very much at home. but for some reason I am good at it. My mom’s side of the family is very good with art, so it is probably a genetics thing. I enjoy drawing with graphite whenever I do artwork, but sometimes I will do painting. My painting skill is nowhere near as good as my skill with graphite though. I am terrible at drawing any body related artwork; and I could only do it with a photograph. Usually whenever I draw I usually have a photo nearby, because I find it difficult to draw stuff from my imagination.

Overall; that is my introduction. And I hope that this year at Brookes Westshore is very interesting; and better than last year.