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Current Mood: i start wailing
Current Location: the king of the jungle was asleep in his car
Current Music: the lion roars

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did a practice SAT today; got a 2250; here's the essay

A colleague of the great scientist James Watson remarked that Watson was always "lounging around, arguing about problems instead of doing experiments". He concluded that "There is more than one way of doing good science". It was Watson's form of idleness, the scientist went on to say, that allowed him to solve "the greatest of all biological problems: the discovery of the structure of DNA." It is a point worth remembering in a society overly concerned with efficiency.
Adapted from John C. Polanyi, "Understanding Discovery"
Assignment: Do people accomplish more when they are allowed to do things in their own way? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on the issue. Support your question with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.

( quite pleased that the college board uses the oxford comma, really. )

Current Mood: the squatters made a mural
Current Location: in an abandoned building where
Current Music: of a mexican girl, with sixteen cans of spraypaint in a chemical swirl

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and i wonder, does everybody feel the same way i do?

"Two men look out through the same bars; one sees mud and one the stars."
-Frederick Langbridge

Assignment:
Does everyone see a thing from the same perspective? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.

( and is evil just something you are, or something you do? )

Current Mood: amused.
Current Location: i don't recognise myself, i'm not the man you loved, behold
Current Music: behold the hurricane // the horrible crowes

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bonus post for today: a humorous repost (not to be confused with a hideous repast)

this is an essay i did for school last year; it was timed and on paper, so when i found an interesting train of thought and forgot about it that was that.

it does prove that i've been wandering in the general directions i continue to be stubbornly beating my head on for a while, though.

(and at least there's commentary, written shortly after the essay itself: hello, fifteen-year-old lemniscate.)

( utterly unprofessional of me, though, by which i mean the commentary is band jokes and the essay is full of memes and comparisons of widespread political systems to acne vulgaris. )

one last note: there was a point i meant to get at in this essay, that i forgot under the time constraints. and this was the flawed...ness of how democracy is taught-by-example in schools. at least in my experience, you get to vote on something (maybe) and not get bullied into following the majority by a cacophony of screaming peers with larynges, apparently, of steel (maybe), and the votes might even be counted (maybe) -- and then the ruling's probably overturned by a teacher who didn't like it, anyway. which is kind of skeevy, you know? that's worth its own essay, when i run out of other ones to do (i will never run out of ones to do, is the problem)

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Location: shredded to nothing atop a microphone stand
Current Music: hear that soul singer in a session band!

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everyone is people, you know.

now, here's something i've heard a lot: "there should be an IQ test to vote". or "only educated people should vote". they're very similar, really.

they're very wrong.

the population being educated is listed as a prerequisite for democracy -- for functional democracy. educated, that is, as to what they're doing: having the ability to make educated choices. but claiming democracy should not happen until education is acquired is a chicken-and-egg issue. lack of 'enlightenment' should not be a falsifying condition; claiming it is, claiming anything is, means you support a díaz (porfirio díaz, that is: "oh, of course i believe in democracy, but mexico is not ready for elections yet") -esque manner of stagnancy, in practice.

an educated populace (aware might be a better word, but then it too can be twisted to "people who don't pay attention don't deserve to vote") is necessary for democracy =/= withhold democracy until education is achieved.

( there are at least eight billion points of view in the world. )

Current Location: believe in me 'cause i don't believe in anything
Current Music: mr. jones (counting crows)

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when everybody loves you, you should never be lonely, you should never be lonely

and for my first trick, ladies and gentlemen and persons who would prefer not to be referred to as ladies or gentlemen, an essay about semantics: on the effects of saying "i believe in this", as expanded on from something i wrote all over my homework agenda (it really did not belong there).

believe in me, 'cause i don't believe in anything
and i want to be someone to believe--
you should not believe in me

(mr. jones, across a wire version; adam duritz)

( get your essays right here, under the friendly dreamwidth cut. semantics essays! get your semantics essays! semantics essays right here! )

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about


what is this?	this is a way for me to go about figuring out what i think about things via vaguely reactionary essays. if you know me and it's stuff i've already lectured you on, ah, sorry for the shameless use of anyone near me as a sounding board? (note: not actually sorry.)
sixteen years old, from mexico, possessed of a big mouth, and utterly incoherent in casual conversation; also, a writer who occasionally attends school. the lowercase is not going away, sorry. we save that for fiction at lemniscate industries.	who are you?
why should i care?	you shouldn't if you don't want to, but having an audience is fun! if for some reason the trainwreck that is me sorting out my own thoughts on things is appealing to you, feel free to subscribe to this community, check back sometime, or decide it's not that important and forget it exists. i care, but that's because it's yet another fascinating new drain on the dexterity of my fingers (100wpm: a blessing and a curse).
when great satan's gone is a phrase from the bright eyes song four winds, which comes highly recommended. for where said satan may or may not have gone to, we at lemniscate industries recommend consulting simon indelicate or jeff scott soto.	when great satan's gone?
where do we go now?	personal dreamwidth ∙ fiction ∙ profile source

Current Mood: vaguely pessimistic
Current Location: a couch with spots
Current Music: jamOn

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some platitude about purposes being dangerous

hello.

this journal / community (it's a community that acts like a journal, effectively, and is built like this so i can segregate the essays i write by accident in my school planner from mental vomit involving rock operas and icons of the decemberists, which is the main content bloc of my primary account lemniscate) has a purpose.

purposes are dangerous, i guess! and very easy to lose sight of.

ergo: this is for essays; this is for political and philosophical thought; this is for things inspired by cleolinda jones and her technicolour essaytech and my desire to emulate her, or fred clark's meticulous dissection and startling moments of prose; this is for me shooting my mouth off and kind of deserving to end up on a sister comm to fw only no one ever pays attention to me so that's handy.

for a rough idea of what on earth i want to get done here, essays that inspired the need for somewhere to put them:
* why everyone's metrics always cut off at themselves
* why, no really, putting boundaries on the concept of citizenship is deadly and deathly and dangerous to you the one being a jerk about it
* the united states as a failed democracy
* mexico as a failed democracy
* your face as a failed democracy
* wait no not that one actually

...try not to take it too seriously, i guess. if you want.