Breathing Dreams like air- blog 13

     The American Dream is defined as the idea that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative. Despite this, I believe that the American Dream is different for every person living in the United States. Everyone has different goals they are pursuing and different aspects of life bring them happiness. Personally, I would describe the American Dream as the freedom to do whatever I want and follow my personal dreams. My definition of wealth is not material goods. I value material goods and understand that money is a necessity, but only consider money as a means to facilitate my happiness. To me, wealth is found in experiences and moments in my life where I am very happy. This happens the most when I am outdoors or spending time with people I love. A wealthy person is someone who lives a fulfilling life and is always happy. Most americans tie wealth into money. The average person views wealth based on the paycheck someone takes home. Someone is wealthy if they have a lot of money and they are poverty stricken if they do not have much cash. I disagree with this common belief because there are many people with a huge amount of money are not happy while there are many people with almost no money who are a joy to be around and love life. Money is a means to happiness, but being rich is not the same as being wealthy. A wealthy person is someone who is happy because they love what they are doing with their life. I believe that monetary wealth and poverty play a small role in the whole scheme of things. As long as someone has a positive outlook on life and are doing what they love, I would consider them very wealthy.  

Everything I Need to Know I Learned in IB Language & Literature Year 2 blog post 15

It was sunny yet cold outside as I tied into the rope and patted climbing chalk onto my calloused hands. Today was the day I would retry Arms Control at Pilot Mountain. The last time I climbed this route, I could not finish the roof and fell nearly twenty feet. Adrenaline coursed through my veins as I placed my hands on the cool, rough rock and then moved my feet onto the wall. The first few moves were very hard. I grasped the tiny crimps and strained to move myself up the route. Soon, I was past the difficult start and onto the easy and juggy holds midway through the climb. Smoothly, I clipped each bolt and clambered closer and closer to the intimidating roof climb. I got to the rest stop on the route and sat back to steady my breathing before I attempted the roof. After a few seconds, I began to climb again and moved up right under the roof. I grabbed the huge jug and set my feet before the big move. I gritted my jaw, moved my right hand out to the slippery crimp and jumped with all my might for the big hold on the edge of the roof. Got it! Excitement surged throughout me, but I remembered that the climb still wasn't done. I clipped the bolt on the roof and traversed along the jugs until I was right below the chains at the top of the climb. I reached up for a great hold right by the chains and pulled myself to victory. I had completed the climb and had gotten my first 5.11 outdoors! Extremely happy, I lowered myself down the rope to the praise of the climbers below. Arms Control had given me a great deal of trouble, but I finally climbed it. 

Here I am on the crux move of Arms Control (5.11d)

Blog Post 14 Witty Whitman

Step 1: Reading Whitman's notebook was an interesting experience. Often, his notes were different to make out. I appears that this notebook was a place for him to write down any idea that comes to mind before he forgets it. The notebook hosts a wealth of ideas and poems such as "The Hills of Brooklyn" and "The Ship of Libertad." Among the notes, Whitman also had various drawing and sketches of men, possibly those mentioned in his poems. It appears to me that the sketches and poems all represent ideas and theories that Whitman had throughout his life. The notebook was the foundation for the poems he wrote and he used it to record all of his ideas, so he could later organize them into cohesive poems. After looking throughout Whitman's notes, it is obvious that he is very creative and used poetry to express his ideas and beliefs.

Step 2: After taking a deeper look at the notebook through the helpful translations, I concluded that my original opinion of Whitman's notebook was mostly accurate. Whitman's priceless notebook was a place where he could absorb in his thoughts and record notes and bits of poetry that were based on his lifetime experiences and the people he idolized or interacted with. Lincoln, Whitman's favorite president was mentioned in the notebook because of Whitman's enormous respect for him. After reading the yellow notes of Whitman's book, I observed that many of his notes were based of the time period he lived in. Whitman experienced the brutality of the civil war and a great deal of his notes were melancholy accounts of the bad emotions that arose on either side during the civil war. Whitman used the civil war as grounds for a great deal of poems. A deeper look at the notebook revealed that Whitman was very observant, and similar to a sponge, absorbed details from his surroundings and used them in all of his poetry.