To my brother, Aaron Phan

Aaron Phan,

This post is dedicated to you bro. If you are reading this then you are taking the AP English course, and in that case I am proud of you. I believe you might enjoy the variety of literature that you encounter as a result of taking this course. From Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner (My personal favorite) to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, the perspective that you would gain from these pieces will impact your life, as it has mine.

Now I want to finish this post off by saying just one more thing: No matter what hardship you face, no matter what urge you have to falter from the course, fight on. Keep true to the cause of intellectualism, and it will remain true to you.

With love,

John Christopher Brannan

P.S. Please, if you are not Aaron Phan, do not comment on this post. I understand that it is sweet but there is nothing to really say about this.

Teach Me How To Dougie...err, I Mean SURVIVE!

I've had a myriad of juniors come up to me and ask "What kind of advice do you have to offer me for my upcoming Senior Year"? So, like the video we watched during 21st century week said "let's COLLABORATE" and compile a couple of tips, tricks, and hints ;) for the Class of 2012 to implement in their upcoming year.

-Organization is key! I definitely recommend buying a planner if you don't already have one so that you can write down specific dates and deadlines.
-Research, research, research college and universities. This is probably one of the most important things that you should be doing from the beginning of your summer and up until about October. Make sure what it is that each college wants from you & make sure to organize it so that you have it ready to go. You DO NOT want to be scrambling a week before the deadline to write out your personal statement and collect recommendation letters.
-Recommendation letters! Get them from your teachers in advance. This does NOT mean 1 week before it's due. *A piece of advice ;) ask Ms. Hill*
-SAT! Eeeeeeekk this scary test should be attacked in the months of October, November, and December. If you decide to take it during the summer in June then that's PERFECT! If you are having financial difficulty then go make bffs with Mrs. Rodriguez because she can get you a FEE WAIVER! Hooorah!
-College applications.... :| Yeah that face describes our experience with applications. If you're applying for any in-state universities like NAU, ASU, and UA then homegirl Mrs. Rodriguez can hook it up! She has application waivers in the front office to these schools that you can use to save yourself some cheddarr $! If you have more money in your pocket then you can use it to spend on books, and pencils, and AP tests :p Oh who am I kidding! (We would NEVER do that!) haha anyways some applications require you to pay a ridiculous price such as $80 o_O and then there are others that have NO FEEEE!!! I <3 no fee! Make sure to do some research because usually those schools are small and private universities and colleges that have little to no publicity and A LOT of money to cajole us into attending their school.

Since I still have to finish my homework (procrastinating) for Pre Calculus because I was (procrastinating) I am done for the night. One last piece of advice do not (procrastinate) like I am doing right now. :D

Who, are, you?

The Metamorphosis by Kafka was truly a peculiar piece of work. While we were reading the book along in class I found it hard to really connect with what Kafka was trying to say. Although I knew better upon going into this book that Gregor might not play the same role in which dynamic characters I typically read of do, I was still far too focused on how Gregor would react (although he never really did) to such a tremendous change. "Yet this is not what I should have been focused on" is the conclusion that I came up with when I was writing out the Journal Response for Ms. Hill.

I came to the conclusion that the most important thing in the story was how one can best serve those who they are most close to. If this means that one must turn into a bug, become even more alienated, and even die in the end so those that you love can learn to prosper on their own, then so be it.

Im curious to hear what everyone else got out of the story. Please comment below. :)

Summer reading

Summer is just coming around the corner. Some students have around two months of summer; whereas, others has one month or less. This is a post for students for this class to start posting summer reading suggestions. Please place Author and Book Title together.

Existentialism

From my understanding, existentialism is the philosophy that there is no innate meaning to life. It is a common misconception that this a somber philosophy; rather, it is an uplifting perspective because it allows the follower to create and appoint their own meaning and purpose to their life. Therefore, existentialism is freedom.