Choices

Sometimes I wonder... is it bad to have choices? Take this blog for example. The hardest part about writing it is coming up with a topic to write about. If there are no suggested topics on the website, then I'm usually stuck. Why? Well, because there is so much to write about. It's actually somewhat paradoxical. I have so much that I can write about, but I can't pick which one so I decide. Another example that is quite relevant in most of our lives right now - college. I had so many choices and eliminating a school from the list is the most stressful process ever. I am now stuck and I have decided that if I cannot decide by Sunday night, then I will flip a coin. Yes, the choice is that hard.

If I had fewer choices, I think I would be a happier person. Although I may not be able to consider other great options, I would be left with an easier decision to make. It would make my life a lot less stressful and therefore I would be at much more ease. Although choices are good, I think too many choices can be bad.

Life of Pi

Growing up, I had a very deep interest in geography, travel, and nature. This interest has remained and is only expanded upon every summer when my family takes trips across the globe and explores different landforms, cultures, and climates. My current independent reading book is Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Life of Pi discusses how the lone human survivor of a shipwreck, Pi, lives with animals in order to survive. Many of the animals are even killed, which highlights the violence that comes with extreme conditions – That’s basically as deep as I can go without giving any spoilers. This book has helped me understand more about my inquiry project question, which stated, “How does extreme adversity bring about the best in humans to survive?” In this book, Pi uses friendships among other methods in order to avoid being eaten by the tiger.

Out of my three independent reading books, I enjoyed this one the most. It was very exciting and kept me hooked. I liked Yan Martell’s writing style more than the other two authors because the pace of the book was much faster. In addition, I liked the styles of the characters more. I felt the personality of Pi was similar to mine in some senses. I enjoyed this book a lot and I think you should read it too!

Poetry

Poetry has actually been a quite enjoyable unit. I have never really enjoyed poetry. I never saw the beauty in the juxtaposition of the words or the images created in short lines. However, these poetry responses and the poems that we have had to read nightly have changed my opinion. For example, last night I wrote my response to “You Are There” by Nikki Giovanni. This poem seemed to have no meaning at first, but after rereading it several times, I noticed small oddities: the letter “i” wasn’t capitalized, there were some lines that were only one word long, the first letter in every line was not capitalized. These small oddities gave way to a greater meaning. I realized that the lowercase “i”s were probably meant to deemphasize solitude and instead emphasize togetherness and unity. I had never looked at poems so closely before. I read the words and did not think as to why the author made these small changes in the structure of the poem. Now, I realize that there is a purpose behind everything the poet writes.

Another such example is the poem “Wheelbarrow”.

In that poem, each stanza is shaped

like a wheelbarrow.

Cool, right? Poetry is challenging because the poets try to communicate a very deep theme in few words. They use word play and other tactics in order to get this theme across. Poetry is beautiful and I am glad that I can finally appreciate this fact.