wiki 5 - 0/20 no post for 11/6

wiki 4 - 20/20 Good commentary on this speech. I found it fascinating too and it impressed me about Mr. Paul... I hadn't paid that close of attention to him in the campaign season since he seemed such a "long shot" candidate... but I am going to watch for him in future years, I have a feeling he'll be back in the ring again in the future!

Friday October 30- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8ltVh5OpGQ - Ron Paul

I think this speech is very good, not just because of what it was about but because of how he did it. He made sure that he kept good eye contact with his audience which is suprising because this speech is clearly a scripted speech to some degree which doesn't usually give the speaker many freedoms to look around. Most important of all, even when dealing with the loss of freedom he still maintained very controlled and very confident both a plus in any speaking situation. as far as content goes this speech is very suprising because of how it does not pick a side in the arguement but rather show both sides of the arguement evenly (Thank you for showing us this Mrs. Staude!). It is also suprising that even though he had lost the election he still showed so much respect to President Obama which is also admirable and was greatly reflected by how he spoke. All in all this was a good speech and I am glad i could hear and see it.

wiki 3 - 20/20 - good posting... you are right; he has a lot of control in his presentation style.

Friday October 23-Speaker-Pastor Clausing

Pastor Clausing is actually a very good public speaker. Going to Lutheran High School for so long I have seen him do many speeches and many chapels. His public speaking technique is one to be admired simply because of how simple he really does make it look. His technique in my opinion, is pure discipline and control. His hands are always at his side and he maintains voice control really well. This shows that he has true confidence in himself, and a speaker with confidence is someone that people will actually want to listen to. This confidence as he speaks in chapel not only makes people want to hear him, but also helps inspire people and makes religion seem that much more important. This is a good trait for a pastor, because it is a weekly reminder of how important religion is. All in all Pastor Clausing is a good speaker that has been a very influential voice at LHS for many years and a man that we can take a lesson from on how to do proper public speaking.

wiki 2 - 20/20 good job.

Friday October 16- Speaker-Mr. Stec

I think Mr. Stec did an absolutely great job speaking in chapel today. They way he talked was always smooth and that showed he had a lot of confidence which made him easier to listen to. Not only that but his gestures sort of aided in his comedic style. In fact, his comedic style of speaking itself greatly aided him in his presentation today. Not only did it make him easier to listen to, but it also gave the listener a chance to feel more relaxed. Also another good thing that he did was that even though his equipment was not working. He still went on with his presentation and actually kept it interesting. You have to give him some credit for that i mean he wasn't ready for an equipment malfunction and it was good that he could still compensate for it by just telling the story. Also making a joke in the beginning of his presentation was a great way to get people interested from the start. I  have to say that Mr. Stec did a good job of speaking today in chapel.

Public Speaking - 10.9.09 - wiki 1  - 0/20 - NO POST!

Bill White

Mrs. Staude

English Symposium

September 20 2009

My Utopia

    It was summer when it all really began. I say this because like most seniors in high school it feels like the first quarter of school still has the warmth of summer outside and in our hearts. I always felt a sense of security, like I really knew myself or the better way of saying it would be that I didn’t need to “find” myself. I really didn’t know what I was in for this year. It started out simple,  and then it eventually led me to odd places questioning the very fabric of everything I believed.

    It really did start simple, just like most seniors would consider normal. It was my last year in high school and the beginning of the year was just a redundant continuation of last year. I walked into the school with a huge smile on my face excited about having something to do and not just being bored all the time. Upon entering I was met by a teacher who was passing out schedules. Since I didn’t really want to talk to this particular teacher her unwillingness to make any form of social contact with me was nothing more than a pure blessing. Honestly, only one thing happened that first day that was significant and that was history class. I had never found myself interested in politics, history, or philosophy. Any of these subjects were quickly able to destroy my grade point average. Now the students in the class were relatively normal, or so I figured and I knew all of them except for one kid who was sleeping. I looked at him with curiosity. Honestly he seemed somewhat out of place. He had a black shirt on and torn up jeans, it just didn’t strike me as totally normal. “Probably just got an image he’s trying to keep.” I thought to myself and I kept thinking about it until the talking was silenced by the teacher. “Dan…Dan Jones!” I looked up at him and blurted out as lazily as possible “Present sir.” The sheer laziness of the action was just a horrible reminder of how much I am not a morning person. He didn’t say anything to me after that, he just moved on. I paid attention though, I wanted to know the name of this new kid sleeping in the corner of the room all by himself. “Ben Smith!” the teacher shouted and there was no response. “Ben Smith!” This time it was loud enough to wake up the kid and he looked right at the teacher and with what is most likely the sincerest face I have ever seen said “Present!”. The teacher just paused for a second looked the kid over almost trying to determine whether the kid was crazy or not then just moved on. The teacher stood up and said “Greetings class, I hope you are ready. This class will teach you about history, our government and worldwide politics. Are there any questions?” It was totally silent at this point and I could feel a sense of brotherhood towards everyone in that class. Not because of any kind deed done, more of the fact that we all as one knew we would hate this class and teacher. The teacher began teaching and I just looked over at Ben all alone in his corner and all he was doing was reading a book under his desk. I just assumed it was a story but I found out later that, that particular book would cause Ben and I both a lot of trouble. Seeing him reading that book was the last thing I remember about my first day of school, senior year.

    Well, like all years in high school the first week is the roughest. After that it just becomes easier and you basically assimilate school into your life and then it starts to just fly by. Also, I would like to note that my friends and I had a blast through the day. It really didn’t seem like anything could go wrong. Even Ben was fairly far away from my mind most of the time. I didn’t know him but rumor was he was quite the trouble maker. This one time in history class, he argued with his teacher over some vocabulary and called the teacher “Closed minded” The whole class completely paused after that was said and watched Ben get taken from the room, I really did care at the time but when it was mentioned amongst my friends I just sucked it up and laughed with them. After all I can’t afford to stand up for this kid. I don’t even know, my social life is pretty good the way it is and I don’t intend to mess things up for me.

    Things were pretty much in the clear and I for one was not complaining. That is, until all the potential energy of my life was set into motion. It started out in history class, not much different from any other day. The teacher said that horrible word “Alright class, today we will be starting a project.” I froze, that word is scarier than a horror film to students like me. Not only in grades though, the potential to be forced into a group with someone that I hate, or someone who is a social catastrophe. I began to sweat with the description I was given. We were to read a book about a certain governmental system and discuss our thoughts on it. This was it, the dread of all seniors. As much as I didn’t defend Ben when he called this teacher “Closed minded” I did indeed know it was true. He was truly Xenophobic. Every senior has told me to just go with the flow and conform completely to the teachers ideology. My initial thought was that all would be well as long as Ben wasn’t my partner. The teacher began reading names “Josh and Steven, Brad and Phil, Jessica and Lauren.” I began to panic I just didn’t want to hear the inevitable truth. The teacher looked right at me with a gaze that would make a small child cry. He calmly said “Dan and Ben,” he then walked over and said very quietly in my ear “don’t let him try my patience any further Mr. Jones or both of you will fail this quarter.” I just sat there quietly, letting the anger at the teachers bias slowly fill me up until I was about to explode when suddenly a somewhat familiar voice broke the silence in my little corner of the room. “Hey Dan, are you ready for this fun and exciting project.” his sarcasm was so thick you could cut it with a knife, but it was very reassuring to me that he had a sense of humor. “So, Dan when can we work on this? I’m not free on Tuesdays.” I just looked at him and said “How about this, we alternate going to each other’s houses by day of the week and take Tuesdays off.” He looked at me and nodded it was about now I began to notice that he really didn’t seem to have many friends. I mean he was social enough if you went to him, but no one did that for some reason. Even if we had free time and we could move around to talk to other people he just sat there in his corner all alone reading that weird book. It seemed like a trivial thing at first but honestly I needed to know what that book was. It was beginning to drive me crazy. “Hey Ben, can I ask you something?” I tried to sound as apathetic as possible thinking my disinterest might make his answer quick and to the point. Ben just looked at me and said “Sure, what do you want to know?” I paused thinking if I should reconsider and figured it was to late so I decided to just blurt it out. “Alright Ben what is that book you are always reading? Honestly I really want to know.” His look intrigued me, he seemed like he was desperately trying to hide the emotion of pure joy that someone would take an interest in him or anything that he liked. He began to tell me what it was and it made me more curious of him as a person “Well Dan, it is a book that my great grandfather wrote. It was passed down to my grandfather, then to my father and he gave it to me and told me that I should read it.” This information blew me away. “What is it about exactly?” Dan looked sort of nervous at this question and looked towards the direction of the teacher for a split second and motioned me closer so that he could whisper to me. “Basically, my great grandfather was a utopianist and he wrote this philosophical novel discussing ideas of how society could progress.” He seemed nervous and almost looked like he was waiting for me to make some rude response. I was more interested in how easily he opened up to me. I looked him dead in the eyes and said “Well, Ben I have to say that is really cool man.” he didn’t show it, but you could tell he was extremely happy that someone thought so.

    The project we were working on required a total of three weeks of work. But Ben and I decided to start working right off the bat. In doing so, I really got to know Ben and learned that he was a very interesting guy. He had horrible grades, but he was a genius about how the world worked. The sad thing is, I really did enjoy his company and this caused me much harassment from my peers as well as the history teacher.  There were two sides that were battling it out inside of me, one  being to stay Ben’s friend. The other side of me wanted to lose him and get back on to social easy street. After a couple of days Ben and I had really become good friends, he even let me begin to read the book a little bit. It started out rather simple but I eventually hit a line that I couldn’t ignore:  “We live in an age of turmoil and pain, we own nothing that lines our hearts and fills our minds. Unless the average man will begin to aid his brothers and sisters we condemn ourselves to nothing less then what we know as the present.” Every time I read that line it intrigued me more and more. I didn’t fully understand it until one day I asked Ben about it, this lead to quite the adventure. One day Ben called me up right after school asking me if I could come over to his house to continue working on the project. His house wasn’t that far from mine, but I was surprised that I had never really been in that particular area before. When I first saw his house, I will admit I prejudged it completely. Ben undoubtedly lived in a rather poor area and I didn’t at first want to be there coming from a family that was considered “normal” in status. I stood there for a moment and eventually walked towards the door all fears set aside. I rang the doorbell at this point I was concerned if I had really found Ben’s house, and for the first time in my life I actually prayed this was a joke. It wasn’t a joke though. As soon as the door opened Ben stuck his head out invited me in, I entered right after the invitation was given to me.

    Entering the house that looked horrible from the outside, I was surprised to see how clean and neat it was on the inside. Ben had never struck me as a neat freak but after seeing his house I have to admit I was beginning to think he was. Ben took it upon himself to break the slightly awkward silence “So, we should probably get to work. My folks are out right now so there wont be any big time distractions around the house.” after hearing this I was reassured that it wouldn’t get any more awkward. We then went up a very small flight of stairs to his room. Ben’s room struck me as fascinating. He had no television, but an entire book shelf filled to the rim. In fact he had books stacked up next to it, my assumption was because he had ran out of room on the shelf. I also noticed that none of the books had any dust on them, to me that implied that he was constantly reading them. These books looked interesting to, and the whole self contained two types of books. These types of books were political theory, and philosophy. We started working and it really didn’t take us too long to get done. We had worked for two of the three weeks and had made a very thorough project over the topic. After the completion of our school work we just decided to talk. Slowly I heard a question in the back of my head slowly rising to the surface. It all made sense now, why he had called the teacher close minded, why he was reading his great grandfather’s writings and why his book shelf is stocked completely full and then some with books. This question I had become so unbearable that I found even our conversation totally irrelevant, it got to the point where I couldn’t even focus on talking anymore. Eventually I couldn’t take it anymore my curiosity finally overran all desire for what I considered idle chat. “Ben, there is something I absolutely have to know, but will you promise to answer totally honest?” I blurted out. Ben sat there almost as if he was wondering if this was a trap but he did eventually reply “Dan, any question you have I will answer.” I was surprised at how he trusted me. It hurt me to think that just moments before I was judging him by his house, I guess there comes a point where you throw everything aside and just wonder if you’re a decent human being. “Ben, what is with all these books and all this studying? Are you a utopianist?” Ben hesitated, I didn’t know then but his answer was one that I still keep with me today. “I’m looking for a utopia Dan, I’m looking for a hope that society can pull itself up. I wish I could be a true utopianist but no matter what I do, I look at how people live their lives and I see that my utopia will never be found.” That puzzled me, I had never really given anything that much thought before. I don’t exactly know why but I felt compelled to ask one more question while we were on this topic. “Ben, what did your grand father mean when he said we own nothing that lines our hearts and fills our minds?” Ben smiled and said very calmly “Anything we own, we think we own, and what we think we own can be taken away from us.” “Seriously?” I replied shocked. “There is no way that is true man, I can’t believe something that is that crazy.” Ben seemed disappointed, he was literally giving me the look a disappointed father would give to his son. “Come with me tomorrow, I know I usually work on Tuesday but I think you need to witness it first hand.” After he had said that, literally the first thing that came to my mind was “Whatever” but I figured I should have the decency not to say it out loud. “Fine, I’ll go with you tomorrow.” At the time, I really didn’t think it would mean anything to me.

    Time flew by the next day probably due to the fact I wasn’t looking forward to “working” after school but I figured hanging out with Ben would probably be worth it. My other friends still gave me trouble about it, but I just decided to block them out. I saw Ben as a genius and a friend before anything. Well eventually the bell rang, my fate wasn’t sealed until I hopped in the car with Ben. That car ride was almost symbolic of how there really was no turning back I was going to have to work. We arrived at the “work” site and when I saw it my jaw dropped. It was the worst house I had ever seen. The yard was slightly taken care of but it too was ultimately out of hand. An old lady came out of the house and greeted Ben with a hug. “Hi Macy,” he said “This is my good friend Dan he is here to help out today.” she looked really tired but she still managed to smile and say “Well thank you so much, you really don’t know how much it means to me.” it was about this time that I realized that the neighbor was outside giving us a dirty look. I looked at Ben and asked “Hey, what’s his deal?” Ben just looked at me for a second, glanced over at the neighbor turned around back at me and said “He is just a jerk, don’t worry about him.” That statement alone was good enough for me, so I began to do little chores around the yard trying to make it neater and better looking. “Hey Dan, do you know why we are here?” I shrugged and said “No, not at all. Why are we here?” Ben looked at the neighbors house and said “Alright you see Macy is a good women who really has never done anything mean to anyone. She is a close family friend and I don’t find this work at all, I’m proud I can help out such an outstanding human being. It started several years ago really, she started getting sick, like really sick. The doctor gave her five months to live, here she is two years later and she is still alive. She can’t lift more than fifteen pounds, making everyday life difficult for her so she can’t do her yard work. Well, the neighbors think that her house is an eyesore so they have called the entire neighborhood community and the local police to start making her do her yard instead of helping her out.”  This chain of facts ate at me, and all I could feel was true sympathy. “They can force that?” Ben looked down at the ground of uncut grass and said “Dan, if it gets out of hand they can.” there was a brief pause, but all of a sudden Ben started talking some more about Macy so I decided to hear more of the story. “She really doesn’t have any choice but to accept help, no one locally will help her because most of them just want her kicked out of her house. She really doesn’t have any family and my family can’t take care of her, we have a hard time making it as it is. So, I come here once a week and do everything I can after school trying to help this woman. I don’t do homework until ten o’clock.” I looked at him puzzled and asked “You work from three to ten?” He looked at me, and I could tell he was holding back some tears. “I would gladly work more, but I need to do well in school. I may struggle but I give it my all!” After hearing that I realized that this was the side of Ben that no one saw, and that few will ever see. If the teacher could hear this he wouldn’t be biased against him anymore. This was a prize that for some reason Ben decided to share with me, I still to this day don’t know why he opened up so much to me.

    After we had finished our work for that day, we left for home. I was absolutely exhausted but I looked at Ben and he was writing in his great grandfathers book. “What are you writing?” I asked he just looked at me and said “I started my chapter in the book. Every generation does it in my family.” I didn’t really pay any attention to it at the time but now I understand what he was writing that night.

    The entire first semester me and Ben were good friends, and we hung out every day. We made it a habit to go to Macy’s house every Tuesday and to try and help her financially as much as we could do. Things were pretty good between Ben and I until one day Ben informed me that he would have to move out of state. We spent the last week hanging out as we always did as if he never had to leave. The day he left I saw him off, at the exchange of our good-byes he told me to take care of Macy as best as I could, this I was already planning on doing. That week I went to Macy’s house and began cutting down some bushes that were growing when all of a sudden Macy stuck her head out of the door and said “Dan, could you come here it is very important.” “Of course I can!” I replied back to her. I entered her house, seeing a lot of my own handiwork along with Ben’s. It sort of depressed me, but mostly it scared me at how much we had actually done and how fast time had moved. “You and Ben are good kids, it’s a shame he had to leave isn’t it? He wanted you to have something before he left, he came to me and told me that you had to receive it while you were here. I promised him I would give it to you.” She handed me a very nice brown book, the covers were leather and in lettering made by true craftsmanship it said “The Utopia We’ll Never Find” I looked at it and gasped. As I looked at the last page it read “We own nothing we have right Ben? I hope you’re still searching for your Utopia!” I looked at it and a swarm of emotions came over me, I grabbed a pen and wrote right next to that comment “I will still search, for that which I will never find.” and I closed the book and began to go home.

Bill, 

Okay... this time you posted in the wrong window! See me on Monday so we can set you straight!

Good work on wiki 2!

Week two:

Your thoughts? Is it right or wrong for Mike to do what he does to (for?) his grandma?- That would depend on how you want to look at it really. Even though he may of given her peace of mind, and a sense of forgiveness it really wasn't real at all. I would say it wasn't the right thing to do because it was a lie and it was horrible that he wouldn't correct his grandma instead of just pretending that he was her old husband.

<Sorry, but this first entry is NOT 100 words long.>

On a deeper level, is there more to say about what's happening in this story besides the futility of a girl's crush on an obviously unattainable guy? Why do girls DO this to themselves??-

There is actually a very good insight into humanity in this short story. This example of a girl trying to date an impossible to have guy is not far from reality at all. We as humans have a desperate desire for what we can't have in our lives. To the girl in this story, this guy was something unachievable so she desperately sought to gain him. It's sort of like when people trade something for something else, yeah they may have their new shiny toy or whatever but most of the time after a while they want what they gave away simply because they no longer have it. So the simple answer is, the reason why people do that to themselves is because it is part of their human nature.

At what point in the story did you start to "catch on"?- I started to catch on when at the beginning of the story when they hinted that there was a party that was going on later that evening. I mean when you think about it, it's pretty plain as day because he basically has this house filled with weapons and they mentioned how him and Pikes had stayed up on many nights discussing the tragedy of losing books. So why else would you invite a lot of authority figures into your home when you hold a grudge against them, obviously it's most likely not to serve punch and socialize.

2.  Also, feel free to discuss how the author manages to make you "feel" sympathy for the house.- It makes you feel sympathy for the house because of how it just continues to live on. I mean the house is blissfully unaware of how the family is dead. Also, it is implied that the house actually cares about the family so it is very sad it is almost like watching a mindless drone that has the potential to love just go through it's existence in total emptiness and without meaning. Also the fact that it was burned shows the brutality of how conditions are around that area which makes you feel more sympathy because it's sort of like it shouldn't of had to happen. Also the poem it reads makes you aware of how blissfully unaware it is, which makes you wish it could just see the big picture.

Great job on wiki 3! YAY! You got ALL your points!

3.  Why was it so important for TJ to do what he did at the end of the story?- At the end of the story TJ shovels all the dirt off of the buildings roof. In a weird way I sort of know why he would want to do this, but It suprises me how willing he was to do it a lot of people would just be stubborn and not want to take care of this. it really reminds me of something a friend of mine told me, the context of the statement and what it meant at the time is different of course but it still applies to this situation. The statement was "In the end, if you are responsible enough to make, you should also be responsible enough to destroy it." basically always take responsibility for your actions. TJ was very responsible by doing so, but he probably felt that since he worked so hard to bring up the dirt and plant the grass he probably felt it was his right to destroy his work not anyone else's. I mean after all a critic doesn't destroy an artist's painting, if the artist thinks it's not worth it than he takes responsibility and destroys it. It was TJ's right to destroy it, him and his friends who worked so hard to make it, it would of been insulting in a way if they had let anyone else destroy their work.

I am going to go "out on a big Limb" here and also invite you to comment on the reading of the Speech to America's Students that I presented in class on 9/8/09. I hope it was evident that I was trying to tie it to our new theme on "pre-judging" things and/or people plus it fit rather nicely with our discussion the other day about censorship. I will be interested to hear what you have to say on the topic as we really didn't allow a lot of in class discussion time. I hope everyone will feel welcome to express their views on the wiki if you so choose.- I want to start out by saying that it was an amazing speech. Why would anyone want to stop a student from hearing that speech? it really does make me think about censorship because a lot of it doesn't add up. What  I mean is, is that after I heard that speech I honestly wanted to work harder and do more for the rest of my senior year. It also makes me think, is that seriously how prejidice we are still? I mean, its like we haven't even begun to grow up if people have issues with that. That speech was given to children to encourage them to do the most they can for their futures and their country, and here I'm trying to figure out what exactly is wrong with that. Personally, my views on censorship are very simple, you can't censor anything and then say it is fair. I  say this because what one person finds offensive another person finds as truth, so to censor one thing simply because it is offensive is actually rather unproductive because you would have to censor everything in the world just about. I may not agree with certain philosophies and ideas and they may offend me, but shouldn't we be happy that we live in a country where we can say what we want? When you really think about it, censorship is a direct challenge to any form of free speech. That fact actually makes it more disturbing that people are so offended by our president giving that speech, when he as the leader of our country is being censored. What does that say about these people? People getting offended by hearing about how kids should be there best and trying to censor that, they either have some sad ideas about society or are they just ignorant?  This all goes back to censorship to, if what I have said offends you, then censor me thus limiting my right to say this but if what you say offends me than don't you deserve to be censored to? People, lets face it that speech if nothing else was made with good intentions and our PRESIDENT should not be harassed about trying to motivate young children to do their best in school, that is when people start being ridiculous.

Does the ending strike you as one that is going to be a good situation for Minta?- I would say it isn't good for Minta at all. I mean it is greatly implied that she was going to spend a large portion (if not all) of the rest of her life helping her father. Yes, her father may not be the most self reliant person on the planet but it is absolutely a shame that Minta will (most likely) sacrifice going to college and getting into a good career. When she sat down in that chair it symbolized how she had taken her mothers place, honestly that replacement of the mother by the daughter in my opinion is where the real tragedy lies. This "true" tragedy is now she has to sacrifice the best years of her life and gradually lose her potential more and more every day.

My project is that I'm writing a short story. Up to this point I have been thinking about it and how I'm going to put it all together and what it is going to be about. I wanted to try and put a little bit of personal experience into it, which is sort of strange for me because realistic fiction really isn't what I usually write. Basically, my story starts in a suburban area with a senior in highschool as the main character. The main character is sort of shy but still maintains a good social life and is rather content. Then he gets forced to get to know someone he never particularly wanted to get to know (yeah, history project we have all been there right?) well he gets paired with this other character who is a little bit unique. He is really shy, and thinks really out of the box. He doesn't have good grades by any stretch of the words and is a flat out rebel in some ways. The thing that the main character (Dan Jones) discovers about this character (Ben Smith) is that regardless of his shyness and his poor grades, he is an absolute genius. Dan, wants doesn't know what he wants part of him wants to get away from Ben, but he is so intrigued by his genius views of life he doesn't want to ditch him. Part of the conflict is between Dan and himself trying to figure out how to view Ben, but there is another conflict. This other conflict is Ben trying to find where he belongs. There are a couple of things that have happened to Ben that have altered his view of life compared to Dan. All in all i hope this sounds at least a little interesting.

wiki 5 - sounds like a great story! I will look forward to reading it. Good work on the wiki too!