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[maxevansschmid]

Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide No escape from reality Open your eyes Look up to the skies and see I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy Because I'm easy come, easy go A little high, little low Anyway the wind blows, doesn't really matter to me, to meMama, just killed a man Put a gun against his head Pulled my trigger, now he's dead Mama, life had just begun But now I've gone and thrown it all away Mama, oh oh Didn't mean to make you cry If I'm not back again this time tomorrow Carry on, carry on, as if nothing really mattersToo late, my time has come Sends shivers down my spine Body's aching all the time Goodbye everybody I've got to go Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth Mama, oh oh (anyway the wind blows) I don't want to die Sometimes wish I'd never been born at allI see a little silhouetto of a man Scaramouch, Scaramouch will you do the Fandango Thunderbolt and lightning very very frightening me Gallileo, Gallileo, Gallileo, Gallileo, Gallileo, figaro, magnificoI'm just a poor boy and nobody loves me He's just a poor boy from a poor family Spare him his life from this monstrosity Easy come easy go will you let me go Bismillah, no we will not let you go, let him go Bismillah, we will not let you go, let him go Bismillah, we will not let you go, let me go (Will not let you go) let me go (never, never let you go) let me go (never let me go) Oh oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no Oh mama mia, mama mia, mama mia let me go Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me for me for meSo you think you can stop me and spit in my eye So you think you can love me and leave me to die Oh baby can't do this to me baby Just gotta get out just gotta get right outta hereOh oh oh yeah, oh oh yeah Nothing really matters Anyone can see Nothing really matters Nothing really matters to me Anyway the wind blows

[maxevansschmid]

Word Horde #1

(page 114)

Remember Our Lives:

Bare,

Old,

Wasteful,

Troublesome,

Bleak.

Cutout

From Hope;

Fading,

A Window.

Fear

Lingers,

Waits,

Never fades.

[maxevansschmid]

Hunger Blog

Ruth plays both an essential role in hunger. Unlike her sister Anna, she longs for escape. Ruth hates the world she grows up in. She hates the violin with a passion that is only shared possibly with her hatred of her father; the abuser, who forced her to practice that cursed instrument for hours and hours, day after day. By the time she is in high school, she succeeds in creating her own personal life, kept separate from that of her family’s. Ruth spends increasingly more and more time away from her family. “I felt, rather than heard, a movement; looking up, I saw the shadow of Ruth's narrow foot disappear off the top rung of the fire escape and over the edge of the roof. (85).” In addition to escaping at night, Ruth also consistently spends her evenings out with her friends. Her only time spent at her parent’s home is when she is forced to practice violin, an activity she vehemently loathes. Her liberation from the tugs of her roots culminates when one night when she publicly announces and carries out her departure from her family, never to be seen again. In that way, Ruth succeeds in cutting her roots with her past. However, in attempting to do so, she only makes them stronger. By her actions, Ruth unwittingly follows the exact same path as her parents and intrinsically dooms herself to their outcomes.

[maxevansschmid]

Opening Paragraph of Essay

The issue of climate change is nothing new. In 1979, United States President Jimmy Carter installed 32 solar panels along the roof of the white house in solidarity of the energy crisis that affected the country at that time. Forty years later, climate change is more relevant than ever. Scan the news on your phone, and within a couple of seconds a climate-related article will pop up on your feed. Advancements in science and further knowledge than what we had in the past allows us to peer in depth into what a climate-change-altered future would look like. And it isn’t pretty. Around the world, we as humans have been pouring our efforts into solving this issue. The 2016 Paris Climate Agreement was signed by more than 190 nations; almost every country in the has signed to try to reduce carbon emissions to a livable and sustainable amount. With all that sorted then, it would be logical to wonder why is climate change still a big issue. Why should this still be at the forefront of our minds if almost every nation agreed that Climate Change is a major obstacle and are comprehensively reversing it? Well, they are not.

[maxevansschmid]

Global To-do list:

1. Universal Free Health Care. This seems pretty logical and indeed in many countries, this is the norm. However, free healthcare should be a global standard.

2. The daily work schedule needs to pushed back by an hour. This means that for us students at CSW, school starts at 9:30 instead of 8:30. I don’t think I need any specific reasons why this would be an improvement.

3. Court cases should be done without sight and direct dialogue between the defendant and the jury. Testimonies and other forms of communication should be written or transcribed onto paper for the intended audience to receive. This might be able to prevent biases of the jury.

4. A high school class teaching essential life skills should be a standard class taught worldwide. Such skills would naturally vary per location of education but I would imagine being taught how to do taxes/manage economics, basic safety/self-defense techniques, how to resolve conflicts, etc.

5. Climate Change and Pollution need to be recognized worldwide and effective and immediate measures need to be taken to reduce the effects of such. This would seem logical, as both phenomenons are almost entirely caused by human action and not only are detrimental to a global ongoing mass extinction of life but will severely encumber human progression if unchecked.

6. Many parts of the world (including the US) need to recognize an increasing cultural and political polarization happening in many countries if not globally. Such a partisanship prevents much general action from taking place at all. Humanity can achieve nothing if opposing groups cannot allow themselves to at least understand some of the perspectives and motivations behind their opposing side. 

7. Avocados should be seen as only an emergency food source and otherwise societally discouraged from consumption.

8. Many parts of the world (such as the US) need to take a look at how media portrays and delivers its information. It should be revised so that is as much as possible unbiased with opposing opinions. Most significantly of all, the purpose of the media should be to deliver information instead of trying to convince audiences of a belief.

9. Lobbying and other forms of bribing positions of power should be addressed, and possibly made illegal.

10. Humanity as a whole needs to take a look back on ourselves; from our origins to where we are today. We need to realize how insignificant we really are when comes down to the grand scheme of things. That little argument you had with your colleague meant nothing directly when comes down to the universe. Taking this into account, we need to realize who we really are and viewing ourselves from the outside rather than the inside. We need to learn that we as humans are all in this together. Race, Gender, Origin, Societal Class, Educational Background, Political Party, Language... None of this matters really matters. On a genetic level, We are all 99.99 percent the same. From this, we need to learn and respect and appreciate the few differences we do have. If that isn’t the first step, then no steps can be taken at all.

[maxevansschmid]

“Boss, I think we have a match!” 

“Oh perfect, we might have finally found company. What data readings do you have?” 

“I’m receiving radio signals from a relatively large solar system orbiting a class III yellow star.” 

“You have done better than expected!!! Can you pinpoint the readings to any specific location, even if it is only perhaps the star or artificial planet.” 

“Hmm that’s odd, the data readings are coming off a small rocky planet, 0.019 interstellar units away from the before mentioned star. I see no external signs of a civilization orbiting the planet. With your permission, captain, I will move our research unit to the point in space when we will or have passed this place.” 

“Permission granted.” The being adjusted the direction of the unit so that it moved through time until the eventual inevitable path of the planet. 

“I am sad to report that the life that we previously thought to have existed is nothing but a small clump of DNA. The forms of life inhabiting planet have yet to even truly control their own home much less the fifth dimension. What a pity. It is truly astounding that such life forms could continue. Indeed, the forms of life appear to be damaging their own environment so that it is unstable. Look at them. Tiny little figures that battle each other for the measly benefit of their own short-lived power. Regard all the swarms of the underprivileged. Born into a life they cannot control. None of them have any power of change. They have managed to affect their own planet but what does that have to do with even their own solar system. They are slaves to the power of time. They fall victim to it as soon as they first exist. What are they to the multiverses. Nothing. Captain, with your concession, let’s leave these miserable specks of dust alone. They needn’t any adjustment of their own timeline anyways. Not if they can’t even control it”. 

[maxevansschmid]

Magic

She peered out of the window, her hands shaking and knees wobbling. Every time she had brought up the context before, it was met with fierce, brief and silencing opposition from her parents; specifically from her mother. If they knew what she was doing now, they would ground her for the eternal time of six months. She glanced out of the window again… No, they wouldn’t be home for a couple of hours. Using this knowledge as a guide to confronting her deepest fears, Claire closed her eyes, took a deep breath, opened them and then exhaled. There, dancing fluently on her palm were five tiny little flames. Relief, flooded through her like a waterfall. Claire hadn’t been sure it was still possible to do magic. She already knew that her powers were past their peak-although not as if she had ever had a chance to use them. Still in her palm was something. She concentrated on the little spirals of light and they expanded to form one large torch on her hand. As if still not believing in their existence, Claire switched off the lights with her non-lit hand and watched as the flames bathed the otherwise hollow and desolate space of her room with light. The slow dripping of wax of a nearby extinct candle captured her back to the reality that although her powers did not affect her, they did affect others. In an albeit futile effort to contain her crimes, Claire extinguished the flames with a blink of an eye and used a less conspicuous form of magic. She waved her hand, and her algebra textbook came flying out of her backpack into the grasp of her reach. Claire waved her hand again and the religious book that her parents had forced her to keep in her room materialized out of thin air. She waved her hand again and the secret journal where she hid all of her dreams and ambitions in, appeared. All at once she juggled every part of her life without moving her hands. Claire allowed the objects that defined who she was, to stay where they were: bouncing up and down like a Ferris wheel. Of course, the few magical actions she just produced were child's-play compared to what some of the greatest youth could produce. Hell, even Claire’s friends could produce mind-defying feats. Yet for now, that did not matter. Claire could enjoy the simplest pleasure life had given to her. And no one had needed to know, even her parents who were fixed upon stopping this aspect of childhood.

[maxevansschmid]

Bog Girl Quotes

“It’s unlikely you’ve ever visited. It’s not really on that circuit.”

This quotation is interesting to me because of the use of personal voice from the author. It breaks the fourth wall in that it directly addresses the reader. In this story of mostly third person, it is both comedic and refreshing. 

“Uncle Sean was as blandly ugly as a big toenail. Egg-bald and cheerfully unemployed, a third-helpings kind of guy.

This and two later sentences also describing Uncle Sean are my favorite sentences in the entire story. This is the first sentence describing Cillian’s uncle and it is perfect. The simile of comparing Sean to a toenail both works visually and also more tangibly as one can picture in mild distaste, the toenail. The second sentence both quietly introduces more information about him and uses another palpable comparison to solidify an image of the character in one’s mind within only two sentences of meeting him. It is simply masterful.

“Falling in love with the Bog Girl was a wonderful thing-it was permission to ignore everyone else.”

This is another very well-done sentence. It clearly exemplifies at least part of the attraction in the Bog Girl. It strongly develops Cillian character to completely become devoted to the corpse  he found in the bog 

[maxevansschmid]

Thunderstorm

The hot stifling force of oppression captures the hazy sky. Everyone can feel it. Even the animals lay down or bark and sound out maniacally as if some great force from above has taken control of their minds. The expected drop in temperature after the height of noon does not come to pass and instead, the silent yet very tangible drumbeat continues. The day carries on. High above the world, the sky is a flutter of activity and one may see unusual colors in the sky; orange, yellow even green. High above the world, clouds slowly roll in like a sliding concrete door, smothering everything underneath them. Anticipating the moment of release, picnic-goers and kids at the beach begin to head for shelter inside. Even though it’s only three-thirty in the afternoon on a long summers’ day the sky eerily begins to darken. By four o’clock the drumbeat of anticipation is so loud everybody can see, hear, smell, touch, and taste it. The bright innocent sunlight of the morning is gone, replaced by thick voluminous thunderclouds. Then it stops. The drumbeat that everybody could practically live within stops. For a moment, there is only silence. If a cricket chirped, it would be heard across the land, but none does so in order to interrupt this essential occasion. Then suddenly without any premonition or warning, a bolt of lightning strikes across the sky and impacts the ground accompanied by the low but overwhelming force of thunder. Again this duo is released, collectively bring both force and chaos to this summer scorched landscape. All at once rain begins to fall, slowly but thoroughly cleansing and balancing the disarray of the lightning and thunder. People begin to emerge from their retreats to watch the spectacle. It is, of course, a rare and beautiful occasion-when lightning, thunder and rain fall from the sky. The rain persistently speeds up with more energy until it is a downpour. Sheets of rain drown the streets. And roofs are but an exhibition of sound.  However, the climax of the performance ends as soon as it fully develops. The rain that once flowed from the sky is now down in the storm gutter. The lightning and thunder are all but a distant memory. The hours of build-up and anticipation mean nothing now in the present. Sunlight peeks out of the fast disappearing clouds. The world returns to normal.

[maxevansschmid]

Reading and Writing

I.

Sunlight sprinkles softly through the building's windows, casting the room in a light golden haze. I, however, pay no attention to this intrusive yet all-too-familiar being for I am engrossed in my book. In reality, I sit in an armchair in my preschool. Children run, scream, play around the chair; my anchor point. However, I am far off, away in my own little world, high above the clouds. In this world only exists the book and myself. Nothing can break the connection. I am only four years old and already engrossed in the pleasures of reading.

II.

Years go by and my love of reading never stops. I start reading more and more complex and difficult stories. In my backpack, I carry always a book. Elementary School cuts into my secret fantasy retreat.

III.

“Okay class, today we’re going to read a book together and then talk about as a class before individually writing a summary of that book.”

A summary? What’s that? I ponder such a concept as the teacher hands out the books and we start reading in a circle. As I soon understand, a summary means restating the entire story in a couple of sentences. But… Doesn’t everyone understand the plot?? Why would we need to rewrite something that we just read and understood?? Also writing is not as interesting as reading and is a waste of time. In the grand scheme of things I had not much to complain about in second grade, the whole writing thing was just beginning.

IV.

As I grow older, and class readings come hand-in-hand with some writing activity be it summaries, book reports or the worst of them all essays. I become frustrated with the whole process. I miss the days of simply reading a book for one’s own pleasure. My resentment towards the literary arts culminates in middle school where I sit in front of the computer late at night, asking myself how I could have let this happen. We were assigned two weeks to complete the essay, yet here I am the night before the deadline with nothing written. I scowl at the computer screen, and it only scowls back with its harsh pale blue stare, illuminating my room that is otherwise swallowed up in the darkness of the night. Outside, the world is asleep but I alone must conquer my enemy.

V.

Once again, I’m back in my favorite chair, engrossed in a book. It has been a while since I have last done so. Too long. For the past six months, my life has been a whirlwind of applications, high school visits, homework, friends, sports and more of life’s activities. I have spent much of my free time on social media and youtube. I recognize how I have changed in these last few months. I have finally been able to enjoy some aspects of writing, specifically creative writing. Yet in all this process I seem to have forgotten what was once one of my greatest passions. Not anymore. For now, I admire the peace and quiet of the late afternoon; sunlight dappling in warm bursts of gold through the windows. Once again I am one with myself,