We won’t be seventeen forever.

*Actually, I know I won’t be seventeen forever because I turned eighteen more than a month ago.

I have always found the age seventeen as romantic. Not exactly the whole kiss/make-out/score kind of deal, but really romanticized. The age where you are still a child, still an adolescent, and still hopelessly in love with the idea of falling in love; the age where you know everything should be “this way”. Seventeen is peak of the age when making huge blunders is still okay, people can still say “Oh, you’re just young. You didn’t know better.” Seventeen for me, is bliss in disguise.

But we won’t be seventeen forever. We have responsibilities and we will have to face them head on regardless if we want to or not. We will fall in and out of love. Idealism becomes unimportant because the real world has no time for it. I was idealist just a week ago. But then reality stung me like a hornet, and I had to remember: I am eighteen.

Sometimes the word adult sounds so pretentious. I don’t pay any bills, I don’t really have any money saved. I’ve been unemployed for two months! I am not an adult yet. But I’m not seventeen.

I don’t want to grow up too fast. I never really wanted to.

But I suppose I need to soften to the idea of growing old.

Senior Year is a BEE-YOTCH! (I need’a sound off!)

My sisters and brothers must have had it easy.

They all told me that junior year was the most difficult and had the most workload of all their high school years. Most of them had finished their required credits by senior year and took it easy, going to school for 2-3 hours a day. I was  looking forward to that.

Unfortunately, I chose to go for the IB Diploma. I am okay with my decision (though sometimes I question it), but I feel like this year is killing me. Mentally, physically, emotionally. It is total annihilation for Ariana Yang.

The seven-hour day complicated school further, too. I have always appreciated school, and now all of a sudden I was supposed to be there at 7:30 AM in the morning in first hour? And if I was not in the class by then, I was going to be assigned detention just like that? Seven classes a day coming at me for four quarters; hardly any break. At least last year History of the Americas 11 IB was 2 trimesters long so I could take an art class. This year everything has to be stretched over the whole course of the year because classes are so short. I assert that I still hardly learn anything.

I am always so tired, y’see.

I never realized how exhausting it was being an IB Diploma Candidate, NHS executive member (a position I absolutely love!), Class Secretary, daughter, sister, aunt, girlfriend, friend, employee, and myself. Every night I don’t fall asleep until around 12 to 1 AM. Most days I get home, go to work or pick my dad up from downtown at 4, do my homework, help make dinner and clean up afterwards, do more homework, have some time to myself, and then do more homework. On top of that, it has almost become bothersome talking to Cheng at night because we’re always both so tired.

My sleep patterns are so bad: 5-6 hours during the week, and when I’m not working 12 hours on the weekends. I will literally fall asleep at midnight on Saturday and wake up at noon (or worse, later) to catch up on the sleep I lose during the week. I envy the students who can manage their time and still get good grades.

Oh, and about grades. I have never done so badly in all my high school career. Freshman through junior year, it was straight A’s (plus one or two B+’s) no matter what. Now I can barely make B’s. Sadly, now I hardly care. I miss that part of myself, neurotic as I was. Koua and I were talking about it once. We’ve worked so hard to stay in the Top Ten, and now it feels like it’s all for nothing. I want to keep on working hard; sometimes I’m surprised that I still do. But I need true motivation. No more IB bullshit.

Sometimes it is extremely hard for me to come to school, which really surprised me. I was one of those underclassmen that never understood why the seniors in my classes never came to school. I never understood that train of thinking. I loved school then! I thought I had senioritis in junior year. Now I know what senioritis feels like.

And shoot, what the hell is up with the teachers this year? I’ve got plenty of great ones (Brandt, Houston, Gully, Lake, to name a few…) but the rest? Like Visual Arts! It was the I was looking most forward to this year. I am not kidding. I loved last year, and I was expecting to love it this year. But nope! It sucks. I lost motivation even in that class! My teacher’s pretty cool, but sometimes I feel like he’s the straight-up conformity he is disgusted by. I think it’s because he goes by the IB rules so closely, which isn’t wrong. But he was so specific for what he was looking for, it made me ponder, This isn’t about “What is good art?”. It’s about “What is IB art?”. I really respect him as an artist; his sculpture work is mind-blowin’, but he can be so trippy I felt like the whole year he really didn’t give a damn about who I was or what I wanted to create. It was and still is all IB, IB, IB! And goodness, I don’t even know what to say about history this year. It’s not difficult. I’ve learned a great deal of content and I find the class very valuable. I’m cool with the teacher; what I’m not cool with is how he treats everyone else. Sometimes it’s so bad I want to scream out loud and walk out of class like that! And Physics 2, my goodness. Banha says I’m just not trying hard enough. (He was keen to point out my tendency to snooze in that class.) Yes, yes. I get all of that. So when I finally get myself together, it’s very disheartening to hear that my inability to understand physics is due to lack of “good-student skills”. Ahem, if I was such a bad student, how do I do well in other classes, sir? Some people are not meant for physics. Until you see that, I’m busting my butt in that class. Electric fields or not, I am still determined to get at least a 4 on the IB test.

Oh, senior year has changed me quite a deal. My attitude towards school has changed. I hate most aspects of it. I find joy in little moments here and there, in lessons, teachers, friends, and my boyfriend. My health is worsening. I have been sick for 3-4 months now! I need some freak’n sleep! I cannot wait for spring. Prom, Graduation, the All-Knight Party, Summer, and my goodness COLLEGE!

Aren’t I a happy camper?

Obama!

 

Obama! That’s all I can think of right now. Not just President Barack Obama himself, but that exclamation: Obama!I feel so alleviated. Yes, I know that our domestic policies, economy, and foreign affairs are all in dissarray, but now I have hope. I have faith in our government.For the first time in a long time, I am proud of my nation. Eighty years from now, I can look back and say: I was alive when the first African-American president was elected. I could not vote, but I was there and I was estatic. *Barack Obama, you are one of my very few heroes.

Realize the Realness of My Really Real Realities

*Evaluate a different situation where a reality only exists in a persons mind.  Have you every experienced a reality that only existed in your mind.

It took me a long time to come up with a situation that would fit for this blog. I considered writing about imaginary friends, but I thought it was a little too literal. Perhaps it’s not, but I did not think it would be a concrete example of a false reality.

But thinking about my childhood reminded me of one thing: ghosts. As a child I was deathly afraid of them. Spirits, ghosts, evil ghosts (dab in Hmong), and shadows (ntxoo in Hmong) have always played an elemental role in our Shamanist (the Hmong religion is often referred to as shamanism, but this is not an entirely correct term to define our spirituality) rituals and beliefs. According to my elders, ghosts were everywhere. Good, friendly ghosts of grandmothers and grandfathers deceased, and bad, malicious ghosts with the objective of pure mischief and torment. I often heard stories of ghosts that possessed my relatives and drove them mad for minutes. There were stories of Sitting-Ghosts, where a ghost sat upon a sleeping person and paralyzed them for the whole night. (This is clinically known as sleep paralysis.) Ghosts, ghosts, ghosts! I was a scared little child, always on edge at the slightest noise.

Of course, my parents said that there were no spirits in our house.

“This house was built in the 1970s. Only two families lived in it before us. No one died.” my father always said to reassure me that there was not a ghost waiting to sit on me in bed at night. My house remained a safe zone.

But everywhere else scared me. I was always afraid of accidentally bringing a ghost home. My grandma told me that sometimes ghosts do that, follow you home. Whenever we visited my cousins’ creaky houses in the Frogtown neighborhoods I was cautious to always be near someone in the light. When we drove by cemetaries I held my breath like the girls in my Girl Scout troop instructed me to. Everywhere carried a sense of fear in me.

This notion of ghosts really burnt into me when I was eight or nine-years-old.

I had received a gift of a snowman doll that one of my great-aunts made for me. While I thought it was adorable, for some reason I had the notion that in it carried a ghost. Ridiculous, I know! But that was my reality. Somehow I had convinced myself of the ubiquitous spirits. That same snowman doll, whom I named Willis, went everywhere with me because I thought I had to love it so that it wouldn’t someday eat my soul.

(My sister is calling me weird right now. x))

I even believed I had a ghostly experience at my elementary school, Highwood Hills. I was in the girl’s bathroom by myself when all of a sudden the lock to the stall door rattled. I didn’t hear anyone enter the bathroom, nor did I find anyone when I was finished. 

While there is probably some logical explanation, at the time I was terrified! Pair that with my haunted snowman and an odd friend who claimed she had a ghost named George in her attic and I was set for a life of ghostdom. Every little twitch bothered me. I saw shadows moving in the corner of my eyes. I never really told anyone about my immense fear of ghosts. They only knew I hated being alone.

I don’t really know when this fear began ebbing away. Perhaps as I entered middle school? It’s kind of an embarrassing thing to recall, but the change from being such a scared little kid to a regular (more mature, though not so much more) teenager was so abrupt that I look back on myself as if I were a different person.

I’m a skeptic now. I believe in ghosts because I choose to, it’s still a part of my religion. Perhaps I am now not the most spiritual person, but I am definitely a lot more comfortable with other people, in other places, and essentially with myself.

I hope this makes sense to you, Mr. Gullickson. It makes sense to me! I think that that was definitely a reality of mine: ghosts everywhere. I guess you can say it was a reality of fear of mine. I was not a paranoid kid 24/7, mind you. Just a little too gullible.

Oh dear, this blog turned out to be a little bit of self-therapy, no? x)

Blogs = Two Thumbs Up (from me)

Mr. Gullickson!

I like these blogs. I used to blog about little stuff on MySpace, but these blogs really have me thinking a little harder, a little deeper. I’m sure it will be a good jumpstart for essays in TOK.

Perhaps I’m just a believer.

*I’ve made green before by mixing blue and yellow.

I’m going to respond to whether or not I can determine if the Holocaust happened, despite the fact that I never experienced it, never saw it, nor did I even live during that time. How do I know it existed?

Perhaps I am just a believer.

A believer, yes. I cannot discount the thousands (perhaps more, I’m not exactly sure) of testimonies of victims of the Holocaust. Is it just coincidence that all of these people tell stories of similar experiences of the terror and death in concentration camps created by the German Nazis? What about the Nuremburg Trials, where high officials were charged for their taking part in the concentration camps? What about all of the pictures of concentration camp victims, most so starved they resembled walking skeletons? How can something of this immensity not have occurred when its influence is found in modern day literature, being the basis of Elie Wieself’s memoir Night, in several movies such as Stefan Ruzowitzky’s film The Counterfeiters. This assertion that it existed is found in how much the Holocaust has penetrated history, culture, and art.

Of course, someone can then ask me about mythical and magical stories that many people discard as completely untrue. How can I say that these stories did not occur?

Honestly, it’s a matter of science and time in the end. I am pretty skeptical of magic. I do not believe it because those are actions that are beyond human capabilities. However the Holocaust, an attempt to annihilate a human race by other humans is something people are able to do. Mechanically, a person can kill another person. There is a capacity for that. Also, I say it is time that convinces me that the Holocaust existed, because it was only 60-70 years ago. There are pictures, and these cannot have been digitally rehanced like many are now. The Holocaust did not happen hundreds of years ago. It’s recent enough so that we are still trying to assess it.

Holocaust denial is “ignorance x infinity”.

N. Korean Propaganda = Approx. 86% Art

*(The 86% thing is made-up. You can believe me if you want to, though. I just brainwashed you then!)

I don’t think it’s very surprising that most of North Korean propaganda takes on the form of art. I think it’s because art is everywhere; it’s so accessible. Sometimes it’s even forced upon people without their knowing. Also, art has so many forms that it can be applied to our multiple senses. I’ve been brainwashed myself!

But back to North Korea, take the video we watched for example. In the video there were different kinds of art being used to convey the government’s ideals.

In the beginning there was a scene with a woman and her little girl, singing a song about how horrible the Americans were. Perhaps to the little girl it was just a song, but the actual words were pretty threatening. This song was especially interesting to me because it was a little girl singing those words. The government is absolute in their propaganda by targeting the children at a young age. There are more songs throughout the video that continue this hatred of Americans, like during the factory energy outage scene.

Also, there are other art forms of propaganda in the video. In the factory there was a painting (or poster) overhead with a burning image of the North Koreans and Americans. (I hope my memory is correct.) Also, in the school where the teacher is telling the students about the story of their Leader’s boots there is a picture on the wall of this very story.

This art is so prominent that it can be hard to tune out. Perhaps this is why the North Korean government has chosen to use this as a medium for their propaganda.

Knowledge Issues & North Korea

I think that the North Korean mentality of hating Americans and loving their authoritarian leader is based primarily on propaganda, much like the activitity we did last week. The North Korean government indoctrinates their people, their young, their educators, and their elders through an intense propaganda regiment. I think a key element of this is language.

 Language, be it written, spoken, or body language, can be used to change an individual’s thinking. Although there is more to the current situation in North Korea, language still plays a big role in the way the North Korean government want their citizens to think. In the video we watched there is a scene where the factory that the mother works in has an electrical outage. When the managers have a meeting concerning what was to blame, one woman is quick to blame herself and her incompetence as a leader while another man blames the “Imperialist” Americans, ignoring their own government’s inability to provide resources for their people. (Although Gullickson did point out that America refuses to continue sending resources to North Korea because of their nuclear development program.) It appears in the whole video, this despising of Americans. It appears they talk and think like this because all over the video there are posters with slogans against the Americans, and songs (remember the cute little girl) about the “kneeling Americans”. Also, there is a scene in the video of a person giving a session to new teachers about how to teach the children about their “Great Leader” and his boot story.

Of course, I cannot make the assumption that North Koreans are being “brainwashed”. Who am I to say so? But I will assert that that much propaganda promoting hate against Americans is pretty unnerving, wouldn’t you agree?

Give Me the Honest Truth, History Teacher!

Are we being taught ‘fake’ stuff in history?

Goodness, I hope not. But I would not be surprised because I honestly believe that everything written down in history is biased to some sort of degree. But I feel like my classes now do not seem as prejudice and exclusive to certain aspects of history. I may even be biased by saying this, but I feel that what we learn now today in history is much less biased than 50 years ago.

I say this because in my class (I guess I ought to say I speak for my classes then.) we recognize mistakes that our own nation made and makes in foreign policies, history books, and relations with other nations. As of now with the United States in pretty bad shape and of low approval by other nations, I do not think that upholding our image and pride is as important as it was decades ago.

Another thing I would like to mention about my classes is that because Harding’s demographics are so diversified, there are so many perspectives to history and events that it helps how we interpret and document them.

When we watched the North Korean video today it made me sad to see how many of the civilians, especially the children, are indoctrinated with propaganda. Perhaps what they are taught is what the people of North Korea really think, but it does not help that there is that looming threat of their dictator government and the rumored prison camps.

In America, we do not have that same threat, but I think that we also have many things that limit the truth in what we learn in history. There is the bias of race, religion, politics, ethics, and personal reasonings.

Perhaps the best way to decipher whether what we’re told is true is to take it with a grain of salt and learn for ourselves.

Language, Baby!

Dear: Hi, Sunshine. The world is round.

Sunshine: The world is flat, Dear.

Dear: No, Sunshine. The world is round.

Sunshine: The world is flat.

Dear: The world is round!

(Strangles Sunshine until s/he understands.)

Sunshine: (Slightly choking.) Yes, the world is round.

 

Since I cannot resort to violence like the preceeding story, I think the most effective way to convince a person that the world is round would probably writing. Honestly, the most effective way would be a combination of all three (written, spoken, and body language) but considering that many people believe books and writings and such, it would be much easier to write the matter down and have him or her read it.

For example:

Dear: Sunshine, did you know the world is round?

Sunshine: Preposterous! How so did you come to this conclusion?

Dear: Here, read this pamphlet. (Hands over pamphlet recently written but heavily researched by Dear.)

Sunshine: Goodness! Who knew there was this much to know about why the world is round! This pamphlet even includes the numerous voyages made by ships and vessels that traveled the circumferences of the world.

Dear: Yes, Sunshine. (Big smiles all around.)

 

What I mean to show here is that books and written materials seem to have more credentials and truth to them than just spoken material. However, there is a downside to this. Because of this leaning towards written material, it also allows for lies, untrue theories, and other such material to be taken as true.