It Was...

It was not what I expected. Going into highschool, I expected it to be super easy. My brother is six years older than I am, so I was able to witness and observe his high school experience and how it went for him. HE NEVER DID ANY HOMEWORK. To this day, I still do not know whether this was because he simply did not do it (most likely the case), or if he got it done during the day at school, or if he just was not assigned any. Regardless, this completely shaped the perception that I had of what high school was going to be like as I started out my freshmen year.

It was most definitely NOT easy. I think that the IB Diploma Programme is undoubtedly the hardest thing I have ever done and I might even argue that it is one of the most challenging things I will ever do. There have been so many times throughout these past two years where I have wanted to pull my hair out, shove a fork down my throat, drown myself, etc. rather than do the 10 pounds of IB work I needed to do. I cannot say this for certain quite yet, (because I have not taken my exams and do not know how I will score on them), but I truly believe it was worth it. Looking at it solely from a logical standpoint, there is no way that I could have been valedictorian if I had not done IB.

But more importantly, IB has taught me a lot, about myself, about the world around me, about life - the list goes on. I have learned what I like, what I do not like, what I am good at, what I am absolutely horrendous at, and I owe all of that to the rigorous (where's Baron?) nature of the program. I believe that we learn the most about ourselves based on how we behave during hard times, or stressful situations. Not only that, I have developed so many valuable skills, like writing good quality, lengthy papers in short amounts of time, which I definitely believe will come in handy in college, public speaking, communicating my work to others, analyzing ANYTHING, and so on and so forth.

It was a heck of a ride but I can say wholeheartedly that I'm glad I did IB. Ask me that same question two months ago and I probably would have told you differently, but looking back in retrospect now, I am confident in that statement. I honestly do not believe that anyone will be as prepared for college, and life, as IB students are. I even think college might be easy in comparison (knock on wood!). It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was IB/high school.

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Witty Whitman

It is very clear to see that Whitman's notebook was not initially intended to be presented to the public - the large amount of scribbles, crossed out words and phrases, and misspelled words indicate that Whitman was simply using this for his own purposes, writing down his thoughts, without spending much time making it look "pretty." Because of the disorganized nature of the notebook, I have a feeling that Whitman had no intention of showing this notebook to others. I think that the state of Whitman's notebook reveals that he merely needed a place to keep record and track of all of his ideas and thoughts and that as long as he could understand his chicken scratch, that was all that mattered. 

There are several different themes of ideas that I can make out in the notebook. Phrases like "the Jew the Christ" reflect religious allusions. Additionally, there are many indications of the creation of a brochure in which there would be an ongoing dialogue between Abraham Lincoln and Whitman himself, with Lincoln referred to as a "President elect." There is also evidence of other languages present in Whitman's notebook with the word "Libertad," liberty in Spanish, repeated a few times. I also notice some talk about the monarchy with words like "throne," the "Queen of England," and the "Queen of Spain."

On almost every single page of Whitman's notebook there is a stamp that has the general shape of a seal with the words "This Liberty of Congress" written on it and a bird-like symbol in the center. There are many pages in the notebook that have drawings of a man with a large beard and lots of hair, most like Whitman himself. I think that all of these observations reveal a few key things about Whitman. One, that he had a lot of ideas about a lot of different things, many of which resulted from personal experiences, things he observed about the world around him, and major events that were occurring at the time. And two, that Whitman had strong opinions about a lot of these controversial issues of the time and was not afraid to voice them - he wanted unity.

After reading what Whitman actually wrote and why he wrote it, I now know that the conversation between him and Abraham Lincoln that he wrote about never actually happened, and was all imagined. This is significant because it reveals that Whitman most likely very much wanted to speak to Lincoln, but was either never able to or for some other reason, did not. I can also now add to the observation that I made about the religious allusions - Whitman was apparently proposing a four-sided version of God, one that included both Christ and Satan. I think that this might be a reflection of Whitman's strong aim of unifying everyone and being as all-inclusive as possible - he very deeply wanted equality and justice for all, regardless of race or religion. Prior to reading this document that deciphers Whitman's notebook, I was unsure as to the rationale behind the use of the Spanish "libertad," but now I know that Whitman was likely trying to point out that his ideal of freedom was not limited only to the United States. This makes a lot of sense, as Whitman was American and many of his ideas were likely taken as goals for his country, not necessarily for the entire world.

^^^ Can we please go?! Field trip???