Here is your assignment--
I have made a smaller post--but most of it does not belong to me, but rather someone who is now just an 'empty shell.'
Tell me what you learned in class today--I am not sure what guidelines should be around this assignment....just do your best....just create something you can be proud of, something that you will carry with you for a long time to come.
Best,
AK
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11 comments:
I just read this, and I thought of you:
"When in the opening days of our sophomore year the returning students of the mighty fine class of 2009 gathered together for the first time, my father, who was then our class dean, asked us why you can never step into the same river twice.
But my father then complicated the question with a story about fishing in Montana. When the only way to access a particularly lovely pool was to cross a raging river, he and his two friends had to bounce from one bank to the other on the very tips of their wading boots at what was apparently the shallowest stretch of the river for miles and miles around. It was hardly shallow, though, and with water rushing forward just below his chin, my father could only hope that his toes would find their way back to the gravel between bounces, before the rapids swept him uncontrollably away downstream. He was terrified. But he made it across, and the exhilaration of success made the cross back to the car at the end of the day much easier. The water he stepped into the second time was certainly new and different, but the main reason that he felt more confident crossing the river the second time was that he was different than he had been before. So, he told us, you can never step into the same river twice because by the second step not only the river, but more significantly you yourself, will have changed.
And no matter how the water changes or how they change, those students would probably cross that river in Montana again and again and again, fishing poles held high above their heads, while the current rushed on and away below. For even though it was that current that did eventually sweep Daddy away one sudden winter night and that current that would soon sweep Deerfield away one ceremonious spring day, Deerfield has taught us the awareness necessary to recognize and adapt to such shattering change in the water of our world. Water has the power to flood us away with the flows but it also has the power to buoy us above them; immersed in the water that once carried my father and has until now carried Deerfield, I feel held up by it, and I hope you all do too. I trust that we’ll bounce fearlessly across it on our toes."
That was written in a brave voice by Ingrid Kapetyn--a strong young woman who surely knows the sound of one hand clapping--a strong young woman who carries rivers and her father in her heart. A father who once whispered familiar words to us: "Humility is the first step to strength."
Today in class, I learned that no matter who you are, you need to, and are going to take a fall sometime in your life. Nobody is perfect, and everybody makes mistakes. For some people, like Holden, they make a chain of mistakes that they never really recover from. Just hope that sometime in your life you meet somebody who is prepared and willing to catch you, before you hit rock bottom. We talked about the broken egg not being shattered, and how this is like Holden because all he needs is somebody to repair him. I think that he has met these people throughout his whole life, but he never really noticed. I can't blame him because who goes through life thinking of who is going to save them. I certainly don't, and Holden definitely doesn't. But what you need to do is be able to reflect back and try to remember who it is that will catch and repair you, before you have hit the bottom and shattered. Holden might have been falling for so long that he can't be repaired, but he needs somebody to try. Holden said that "People never notice anything." Is this true? Or does Holden just not notice people noticing him? Like we talked about in class, there were many opportunity's for people to catch him, but he wouldn't let them close enough to do it and if he did he would push them away when they tried. Holden always calls people morons, and he also said "All morons hate it when you call them a moron." Holden knows he himself is a moron, and this makes him hate himself even more. Whenever something bad happens too him he says that it makes him even more depressed. He is at fault for his depression and if he just opened his life up to family or friends all these bad things wouldn't happen to him. Today you also read us a poem, about how a man was stabbed and instead of blood, money poured out of him. On page 113 Holden says, "Goddamn money, it always ends up making you blue as hell." While I was writing this I was skimming my book and I happened upon this quote. It immediately made me think of the poem you read us today in class. I pictured that man dying with "Benjamins" pouring out of him, and how he is slowly turning blue from lack of oxygen and blood. This is a morbid thought, but it also is what Holden is talking about. When you have money, you are slowly dying, suffocating from loneliness. You look around and see all the faults in other people, instead of seeing what is wrong with yourself. Holden may not be drowning in money, but he is definitely drowning in loneliness and self pity.
Today I learned that you can break easily, but the only thing that matters is how you recover from the blows. Things can break all the time like Holden, like a robin’s egg, like chalk and like students but it is all about how you pick your self up after the blow. You could just stay in the same cycle and go through breaking over and over again, but at one point you will be beyond cracked or chipped you will be smashed, pulverized into a dust. You need to break free after a blow and move on and recover. You need to give yourself the chance to change on your own, where people can not judge or criticize punish you for the mistakes you have made. You need to change for yourself, not other people’s harsh words or actions, because they cannot control you but they can try. And above all you have to want to change and have to be able to be brave enough to put effort towards changing and you need to understand that there is a strong chance that you are going to have to withstand another blow. Some people are here to make you stronger by breaking you down, but what they are really doing are building you up and preparing you for people who will just break you, and break you with force. Today in English class I learned that you can break easily, but the only thing that matters is how you recover from the blows.
Today I learned that the only way to escape is to fall. Holden is trapped. He is trapped because he constantly thinks about his past and possible future and cannot think about the present. The only way he can escape this is to fall. Mr. Antolini says that he is on a great fall, however he says that while on this fall, Holden will never stop falling. This is where I think he is wrong. I think that Holden is falling, however, he will hit the bottom at some point. When he hits the bottom, he will finally be able to escape his past. This ‘bottom’ could be anything. For the robin’s egg the bottom was the ground. For Holden it could be anything. The bottom will catch Holden. However, when it catches him, it will not let go. While Holden looks for someone to catch him, he is really looking for someone or something to land on. However, when Holden lands, he will crack. He will break, maybe even smash. But this is not a bad thing. When he breaks, he is only breaking free from his past. Finally letting go. Only an empty shell of what once was will remain and Holden will have started to live in the present. Therefore, Holden must fall in order to escape.
I have learned that in order to work for progress and try for success is to be cracked, to feel the pain and misery that I have slept on so worryingly. In the beginning of the year, I knew I had to change the way I am as a friend, a sister, and a person. I knew what I was lacking in each character. Through writing my experiences and aspirations, I have enabled myself to become angry, vulnerable and cry away any pain or guilt. I have thankfully realized from Holden that the only way to change is to accept my past and then bury it—do not forget about your past, don’t dwell on it, but let it be your key to the present. I have learned to prepare myself for the difficult, but crucial landing, reassuring myself that this is the only way for my struggles to be an accomplishment and allow me to able to see my clear reflection. Preparing myself will allow my heart to become whole, and having it be whole allows for it to break, and then learn.
This class has helped me learn that I do not need to feel that I have to be right—not in the classroom, not on the field, or the way I present myself. Yes, so it doesn’t matter if you are right or not, but what does matter is how you learn from your mistakes. How you act with them afterwards. How you accept them with purpose and poise. How you turn them into accomplishment. Effort to me outruns an A plus or being correct any day. Through accepting and then burying your past mistakes and realizing it is fine if you make them, you will be able to fly. I am able to fly now, now that I have recognized the pain, guilt, and confusion in my life. I am able to fly because I let those impediments disappear into the dark where they cannot see their direction. I have so appreciatively learned how to catch myself when I have fallen, and then to understand why everything happens for a reason.
I have learned that in order to work for progress and try for success is to be cracked, to feel the pain and misery that I have slept on so worryingly. In the beginning of the year, I knew I had to change the way I am as a friend, a sister, and a person. I knew what I was lacking in each character. Through writing my experiences and aspirations, I have enabled myself to become angry, vulnerable and cry away any pain or guilt. I have thankfully realized from Holden that the only way to change is to accept my past and then bury it—do not forget about your past, don’t dwell on it, but let it be your key to the present. I have learned to prepare myself for the difficult, but crucial landing, reassuring myself that this is the only way for my struggles to be an accomplishment and allow me to able to see my clear reflection. Preparing myself will allow my heart to become whole, and having it be whole allows for it to break, and then learn.
This class has helped me learn that I do not need to feel that I have to be right—not in the classroom, not on the field, or the way I present myself. Yes, so it doesn’t matter if you are right or not, but what does matter is how you learn from your mistakes. How you act with them afterwards. How you accept them with purpose and poise. How you turn them into accomplishment. Effort to me outruns an A plus or being correct any day. Through accepting and then burying your past mistakes and realizing it is fine if you make them, you will be able to fly. I am able to fly now, now that I have recognized the pain, guilt, and confusion in my life. I am able to fly because I let those impediments disappear into the dark where they cannot see their direction. I have so appreciatively learned how to catch myself when I have fallen, and then to understand why everything happens for a reason.
Today in English class I learned that we are all like Holden in some way or another. We will all break and we will all hope to be caught. But unlike Holden we have to try and fix ourselves and if we’re lucky we will meet someone half way who can help us. Throughout life there will always be reasons for breaking and for hating and for giving up. If you can push past those and put yourself back together you might be even stronger than you were before. Kind of like the broken egg shell, you just have to remember that while it lies on the ground broken there is a bird flying away to bigger and better things. Some breaks will be worse than others and sometimes it might feel like someone is out there smashing you with a hammer but once you pull yourself back together you will most likely have learned from it and be better prepared for the next fall.
I also learned that everything ends. Something’s more quickly than we would have liked.
It is impossible not to take a fall as a human. After you have fallen you will most likely be broken by the thing that has stopped you. I learned today in class that to realize your wrong doing one must be hurt by what they have done, not to the point of death, but to the point where there spirits have been broken yet still able to be mended. In other words if you do something that you know is wrong yet you continue to do it, you will eventually lead yourself to a fork in the road where one way is reality and the other road is just a giant circle in which you continue to repeat the same wrong doings. By the time you have gotten to the fork you are unable to erase that past which means that you are left to either acknowledge your problem(s), or continue on the path of personal destruction you are already on. It is important that you go about after your fall at your own pace. Other around many appear to have already blossomed, but that is because they have just fallen ahead of you, and have taken the path of reality. Reality may not always be happy, but for you to be able to mend and soar you have to defeat the battles you have ignored which is how you gotten broken. There is a famous Chinese proverb that says “Failure is not falling but refusing to get up”.
In class today I learned many opinions of my classmates on their interpretation of End of April and comparing it to the Catcher in the Rye. We decided that Holden is the partially broken egg and that he can be put back together with help from others. I also learned that sometimes you need to fall so someone can find you. We continued to say that all of the fallen blossoms were the people in Holden’s life that had a chance to catch him, but failed. Even Stradlater and Ackley could have caught him. Sometimes things that happen don’t seem real, but they’re actually happening and Holden needs to acknowledge that. Everyone has bloomed except Holden. He has a lot of potential, but he needs to do something about it. However, trying to decipher the next two stanzas, we got sidetracked. I learned that sometimes distractions won’t just go away. You need to help yourself sometimes to get you to a point where you can focus. I think that Holden needs to help himself sometimes too, to prove to people that he does care.
Today, I learned that falling is not a bad thing, but a natural thing. Holden threw himself out the window a long time ago and he has been waiting for someone or something to catch him, but until that happens, he will keep falling, keep getting kicked out of school, keep getting drunk, and still blame everything on someone else. The trouble with Holden is that whenever someone wants to catch him, he fights it and does not allow for that person to catch him. He is a contradictory character in this way. I also learned that everyone has to fall sometime or another. Our class fell today in this period. But it did not completely smash, it is not too late for us to find each other among the blossoms. We were talking about how this one of the first of many ends that will come when this year is over. But I learned today, that the end of the fall, is not an end. When the chalk hits the table, it bounces back up. Yes, it may have a chunk of it come off, but the rest of it still bounces back up. And it still can be placed back up above the board, so that it may begin it's journey some other time.
I learned today that we have to be broken, and not merely fractured to make our way out of the Rye. We are all fractured and imperfect. Sometimes it is necessary do destroy what we once were in order to become something different. Holden needs to get over his past and start thinking about the present. He wants to remain the same as he always was, but that part of him must be destroyed. Holden has to take a hammer and smash that part of him that desires to live in the past. It will be hard, and that is the part that Holden is afraid of. He is terrified of how difficult it will be. Not many people are still willing to help Holden. Most people have simply given up on him. He is not willing to try to help himself and there is no way that anyone can do much for him if he can’t even help himself a little bit. Holden is not willing to do any work and without work, he can’t get anywhere.
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