My Last Hoo-rah…

While attending my high school, I’ve encountered a multitude of people, but I’ve never met a class of students that I’ve gotten along with quite like the current freshmen class. I grew incredibly close with them over the year and felt like I was one of their allies in the rough world of high school. In my dwindling days as a high school senior, I wrote this speech, which I tearfully gave to a group of 43 amazing kids.

Through out my four years here, I’ve met somewhere around 392 people. That’s seven classes, the three years before me, the class I graduate with, and the three that I’ll be leaving behind. Now I may not be everyone’s best friend in this room but I’d like to think of myself as someone that you’ve all felt close to at some point in the year. Being close is what high school is about. It’s not about who hates who or who is going out with this boy or what girl has the most friends… it’s about being close with your classmates and being there for each other when you need one other the most… because for the next three years. These are the people you’re stuck with. These are the people who will feel the same stress and anxiety as you do on the first day of sophomore year, walking into Dr. Immel’s classroom. These are the people who will be here when you can say you’re officially done with star testing for the rest of your life when you’re a junior, the people who will be here when you walk across the stage in Warren auditorium in three years when you graduate. Being close is important at such a small school, you’ll be become a part of each others lives, as if you all weren’t already.

 I can honestly say that this class, these people, this 55 minute time period, is what I look forward to when it’s Sunday night and I’m preparing myself for the week ahead of me. These 55 minutes I get to share with you and Mrs. London, literally make my day. It’s third period, the middle of the day for me, although it’s still sometime mid morning in your eight or nine hour schedule… Around this time is when I’m starting feel a little tired and my energy levels are depleting…

But then I’ll walk through the door way and hear the buzz of the room, whether it’s this corner talking about star wars or pokemon, or the far corner going crazy over a squished slug in a sock, or the front corner laughing at something Kurt or Matt did… And it’ll just bring a smile to my face.

We’ve had some fun times in third period art, the singalongs, the birthday fiestas, story telling sessions, or the time i talked you all into hiding under the tables, that’s when I knew there was something different about this class… Not only you were you willing to listen to me but you gladly got down under the tables and laughed. You guys all have this way of being… it’s the way I wanted to be when I was your age. Happy, humorous, confident, and liked by my peers. That’s essentially all I wanted. And that’s how you guys are.

I know I’m dragging on and it’s partially because I like public speaking and the other part is that I have so much to say to you all but so little time to do so. The following week, i won’t be around much and you’ll all be acing your projectile motion final while I’ll be getting ready to say goodbye to high school, but this week is basically the last that we’ll have to spend together so let’s make the most of it and end the year on a high note.


I’m going to end my little speech by saying that you have all impacted me in a way that I didn’t think was possible, you’ve given me confidence, strength, and a thousand memories… Thank you for being who you all genuinely are and for welcoming me into your lives. It’s not everyday that an eighteen year old can feel accepted by a room full of fourteen and fifteen year olds… but when that happens it’s something special and don’t I know it. I love you all and better get a damn invitation to the “End of the World” party in 2012 and of course… to your graduation.

I’m going to miss everyone that I’ve met during my four years at high school. It will be a tough transition between seeing all of my friends every day to being a little fish in a big pond at college. High school has given me many memories, lessons, and connections which I hope that I will never forget.

New Guinea

 Unknown, undiscovered, uncharted. For thousands of years, New Guinea has existed unnoticed by the modern world. The first time New Guinea was spoken of was by frightened airplane pilots who gave accounts of dangerous tales of cannibalism and head hunters, not to mention pirates. Between these frightful dangers, it was believed that nothing else existed on the island.

 Just beyond these treacherous tribes lies a group of people no one thought could exist. Thriving off the fat of the land, nurturing nature as natural botanists, the people of the New Guinea highlands wander around in their environment, stumbling upon new species of plants. Fascinated by the possibilities, they conduct numerous experiments to test if what they found can be used for medicinal, edible, agricultural, or decorative purposes.

That brings us to present times in New Guinea. The indigenous people still exist but they are in danger from competing oil companies. Two companies reside on New Guinea, both making the same amount of money, but in two completely different ways. 

 The Salawati Island, controlled by the PERTAMINA oil company, is an example of what happens when oil companies don’t take care of the environment. Streets are laden with oil and large chunks of rain forest have been cut out. The environment is being corrupted in a way that will crucially impact the indigenous people of New Guinea. Over ten different species of birds have gone extinct in the area.

 Over on the eastern side of the island, the Chevron oil company is producing just as much oil as its counterpart. The difference is that Chevron does there business in and environmentally friendly way. Unlike the dirty and polluted way PERTAMINA conducts their business, Chevron keeps their damage to a minimum. They clear very little space, only as much as absolutely necessary. They even fly people in by helicopter to save the environment. Instead of burning excess oil, they store it and ship out. In this way they are preserving the nature around them to cut down the impact on native people who have lived there for centuries 

  To bring it in to a broader prospective, recently an oil tanker collided with a bridge and spilled 58, 000 gallons of oil into the San Francisco bay. This accident could’ve been avoided if we were more environmentally conscious. Scientists say this will affect the environment for years to come. We could take a lesson from the Chevron oil company and avoid future accidents. As citizens of the US, we need to become more aware of our actions. 

The Psychoanalyzing of Lord of the Flies

 William Golding’s highly successful novel “The Lord of the Flies” is the story of a group of English boys who have crash landed on a strange island during the process of an evacuation of London from a world war. Through out the novel, the reader is engrossed in the life of the boys, whether they be the hunters, the littleuns, or the older boys. While living on the island, the boys develop a fear of the thing that they call “the Beast” (or “the Beastie” in the case of the younger children).  The Beast is speculated to be something from the water such as a giant squid, or something from the jungle like a huge snake but in reality the Beast is a dead parachutist who fell from his plane during a battle in the sky. The reader is told what the true Beast is while the boys on the island are kept in suspense.

   The novel’s three main characters Ralph, Jack, and Simon have specific yet different ideas about what the Beast is. Ralph is the “chief” of the group of boys, he is brave and does everything he can to make sure the boys are rescued from the island. Jack is the leader of a group of choir boys and doesn’t like that Ralph is leader. He is determined and thinks he should be chief instead of Ralph, later in the novel his gathers a group of boys and they become their own tribe. Simon is a quiet boy who is picked by Ralph to go on adventures with him. He befriends Ralph and Ralph’s friend Piggy while living on the island, he is alienated by Jack because he suffers from frequent fainting spells (deeming him somewhat unworthy of the tough job of hunting). Simon is the most in tuned with nature and during the novel’s climax he has a conversation with the actual Lord of the Flies. Using a Freudian Theory about the characters of a novel, one would find that Ralph, Jack, and Simon fit well into the theories of the Ego, the Super-ego, and the Id (respectively.)

  Ralph (the Ego) is the most realistic of the boys, on a psychoanalytic level the ego is something with a personality structure consisting of defensive, perceptual, and intellectual cognitive thinking. They are reality in a sense and mediate between the id and the super-ego. The ego balances the world between the id and the super-ego, satisfying both of them in their needs and desires. The ego has a type of loyalty to the id, calming it and minimizing it’s conflicts with the super-ego. The super-ego watches over the ego, and when there is something that the super-ego doesn’t like going on, it inflicts a sense of guilt, inferiority (the super-ego being the superior) and anxiety. In the novel, this is the case between Ralph, Simon, and Jack. Ralph does not believe there is a beast but he humors the ideas of it. He is rationality, he is reason, he is reality. To Ralph, the Beast does not exist, making the ego’s idea of fantasy and whimsy (the Beast) idealistic.. proving that the Beast is unknown (to him at least).

 Jack (the super-ego) is commanding, demanding, and aggressive. He is consumed with the idea of having power.  He is the leader of the hunters and becomes quite blood-thirsty towards the closing of the novel. He constantly pushes the idea of being the chief at Ralph (who was chief) because he can’t stand not being in charge. When faced with the idea of the Beast, he embraces it. He makes it up to be a huge terrible monster who will attack anything. By planting this idea in the mind’s of his tribe… he learns to control them and make them think there really is a beast. When living in London, Jack was the leader of an esteemed boy’s choir group… he was instructed and criticised harshly (which is probably how he developed a super-ego). He grows to be a father type figure on the island, the boys in his tribe live to satisfy him and follow his orders no matter what, this falls into Freud’s theory of a super-ego. To the super-ego, the Beast is a great and terrible thing that he must find and destroy.

 Simon (the id) is a quiet boy who is one with the land. He seems to know the terrain before even exploring and he spends a lot of his time wandering in the jungles of the island.  Simon is kind, spiritual, embodies the goodness of mankind, and acts based upon his morals instead of the pressure and guilt of the other boys. Simon is the only one of the island who believes that the Beast is not truly real, instead he believes that the Beast is themselves (the boys). This belief is based upon his reasoning that the Beast exists within all of us, it is our evil; no matter how good the person is. There is no sense of conscience in Simon’s thinking, just the true desire and want. To the id, the Beast is the evil within one’s self.

 There you have it, the Beast of the novel “The Lord of the Flies”, has been broken down and analyzed. While all of the results are different, the idea of a Beast lives on in today’s society.

Goodbye High School

    It’s a bittersweet feeling, waiting in a sort of limbo, to matriculate. Four years of experiences, some good and some bad, but all memorable, are coming to an end. As our senior year winds down, the assignments are fewer and there is a palpable anxious feeling that is in the air. My classmates are heading off in different directions, breaking away from close groups of friends and going their own way.

Space Taxis

   In a recent Reuters article that was posted, Reuters describes NASA’s plans to develop their space program into a more commercial shuttling service. NASA is asking for proposals for a new design for their new fleet of commercial shuttles. At first they will be solely for trips to the International Space Station (ISS), but eventually for journeys to the moon and the rest of the solar system.

  I think that this new plan is pretty exciting and innovative for our nation’s space program. Although it is quite costly, one seat on a Russian shuttle costs a whopping $50,000,000, but costs are more than likely to drop when this program really “takes off”. In all honestly, I will likely never see the day when I can personally afford a trip to space, but this is a great advancement for NASA and for humanity.

Untitled (Another one of those poem things)

Our love as beautiful as morning dew, It shines as bright as the gold stars above. Our love as sweet as a new bird’s coo, It flies and floats like the purest white dove.

I let my thoughts wander around with you, Remembering all the fights that we’ve had. I cherish the tenderest moments too. Thinking of our future makes me so glad.

We sit here together in the dark room, Wishing what we have will last forever. It is happiness that fills us, not gloom. Our will last and each fight endeavor.

I know you love me, but I love you more. It’s that cute face of yours which I adore.