Varun's AP English Blog

"the unexamined quest for knowledge is hemmed with peril" is one of the statements we discussed this week which I thought was really interesting.  The way I interpreted it was that fear of discovery is what is holding science back.  According to Google, hemmed means to "surround and restrict the space or movement of."  So peril or fear is restricting the quest for knowledge because no one knows what will come.  I think it's interesting but I also think this mentality is dangerous.  As science continues, if there is no restriction by morality and general judgment, unintended consequences could occur.  There's this one video put out by Call of Duty that does an amazing job showing this. In this video, it shows how the rapidly improving technology is dangerous to humanity.  It's something to think about, let me know what you think! "This is happening. The only question that remains is how far will we allow it to go."

This week, we read about The Fearless Girl and how it appropriated what the Charging Bull meant.  I found it really interesting how a simple insertion of a statue of a girl standing completely appropriated Charging Bull's meaning from a forceful allegory of market optimism to "aggressive threat to women and girls - a symbol of patriarchal oppression."  This is the first real-world art piece that I have read about where the piece was challenged and in a sense, it lost.  After thinking about Arturo Di Modica's complaint to remove fearless girl, I would have to disagree with it because his art was challenged... and he lost!  After this week, as odd or cheesy as it sounds, I've found a new appreciation for artwork and the ingenious thinking that it requires. Quite an amazing combination of art that makes you think!

So talking about this in 4th hour got pretty intense as everyone had different stances on what was going on.  It was really interesting as I have never really considered all the different standpoints.  One thing that I really got from the conversation is how no matter what you call it, it doesn't change the situation directly.  I would have to disagree with that claim that PC culture "tends to distract attention from the real problems of prejudice and injustice that exist in society at large," I believe that PC culture isn't helpful to addressing the problems at hand but rather addressing the sensitivities that people have toward those issues.  That's why I think that PC culture is needed in order to avoid sensitive feelings to convey useful thoughts.  Thinking to the language I speak as well, Tamil, PC culture does exist.  There are words that have varying intensities when talking about things like, for example, a mental handicap.  I think it's really...

Have you ever texted someone and you feel like they're trying to send you a signal?  Like you're sensing this person throwing shade but you're not quite sure?  Although Pinker argued that he wanted "people [to] just say what they mean," I believe that the issue is also how people misinterpret other's words to their bias.  Take this sketch for example done by Key and Peele; Text Message Confusion.  In this skit, Key and Peele are texting back and forth, each misinterpreting what the other really means.  Key's initial frustration with Peele caused him to believe that Peele was being aggressive, while Peele's laid back nature made him overlook Key's aggression.  When asking to hang out, one of the phrases was "do you even want to hang out?"  While Peele understood it as Key being considerate, it was really frustration of the earlier conflict.  It's a great skit if you want to watch it, but it's fairly mature so naturally, I can...

     The first time I faced the concept of death was 4 years ago.  Obviously, I knew what death was but I never knew what it meant.       I had this cousin.  I had been to his house every time I went to India.  At younger ages, we were really close.  We always had fun together and he was almost like a brother to me.  But as time went on, we grew distant.  He started to be extremely rude to me, and the last time I saw him, he and I would get into physical fights.  At the time, I honestly disliked him.  I didn't want anything to do with him anymore, and I promised myself on the way back that I wouldn't try to sort things out unless he changed.        Almost 3 months later, I remember waking up on a Sunday morning to my grandparents crying downstairs.  As I went downstairs, I saw them on the phone with my parents beside them, all listening to the bereaved parents.  I went back up to my ...

Storytime.      Just like how Eighner has "learned much as a scavenger," I learned a lot from the time I myself went dumpster diving.  This took place in 6th grade.  It was the early middle school period when I was still in the Avondale School District .  I remember going with my two friends and an older sibling.  We all went to GameStop to go pick up some game which I can't remember off the top of my head because that's not what is important.  What's important is what we did.  Right before we were about to leave, we had seen a GameStop employee go around the back of the complex and dump a box of games into the dumpster.  Naturally, we were curious, so we parked right next to it and open the lid.  To our astonishment, there were so many games (among other not so appealing items) sitting in that tin waiting for discovery.  Sadly, the majority of them had the discs intentionally scraped so that they could not be used....