Journal #16 - Weirdly Dressed People.

Today, for example! There is something that a lot of the seniors are doing today. I am not sure what they are doing or why they are doing it, but for many of them it involves dressing differently that the rest of the crowd. A few senior boys in specific have been running around the school all day in super short jean shorts - at least for guys - and spandex beneath them. They also are wearing sleeveless plaid shirts with brightly colored t-shirts beneath them. They look really strange. I think some of them are even wearing sweat bands. When the students in the school have seen them, they have laughed, snickered, and sometimes shunned the crazy seniors. Their strange choice of fashion came as a shock to us, and is still is. They are probably doing something weird right now in their funky outfits. The people of the school are reacting very much to their antics. For the most part, people are laughing at them - whether it be light hearted or not. They laugh because it is different from normal attire, and therefore, they find it weird. However, there have been many instances where such a "weird" thing has become the new fashion trend that everyone is doing. I highly doubt that people are going to start wearing jean shorts and spandex with sleeveless plaid shirts and t-shirts beneath. That is just kind of strange. But there have been many times where those weird trends have become the next big thing.

Journal #15 - Missing Someone

There are plenty of people in my life whom I miss dearly. I make constant attempts to connect with them, and for the most part, I am successful. I maintain friendships with these people despite their long distances. I once hosted a foreign exchange student from the Netherlands. She is rather far away. I also have internet friends who I only get to see once a year, if that. However, the person I find myself missing the most is my friend Missy. She did not move an extreme distance from me. If anything, she is closer. Unfortunately, with her moving, she was no longer a part of our school district. Great. I find my self overwhelming myself with extra-curricular activities such as marching band, drama club, art club, scholastic, etc. I am almost literally never home during the school year. The thing about Missy was that she would always do those things with me. I saw her every day from eight to whenever we had to leave school, which was often in the evenings. My life always involved her. The moment she moved, however, I had to rely on planning things with her outside of school. When do I have time for that? Close to never. Then, whenever I have a free day, she is usually doing something with one of her friends or something with her school. The sudden lack of Missy in my life was pretty upsetting. I am still not entirely over it. Nonetheless, I find ways to keep in contact with her by texting her in the mornings and evenings. Sometimes, I even find time to skype her! She and I have been getting a lot better at hanging out and being consistent about it, so I do not find myself missing her too much all the time, but there are still many times where I wish she still went to my school so I could see her every day in person.

Journal #14 - Scary Moment?

To tell the truth, I do not remember a time when I was actually truly scared. I have watched many horror movies and those never cease to scare me to death, but that is not very exciting. A lot of people watch horror movies, especially around Halloween like now, so talking about such a scary moment would not be entertaining at all. However, there was one time a few years ago when I was actually terrified. It was not so much that I was scared of something, but more that I was worried out of my mind. You see, my friend had to move away because her current house was literally falling apart and they could not afford to fix it. The only house that they wanted and could afford was one out of the Pleasant Plains school district. She was my best friend (still is), so you could imagine that I was pretty concerned. The fact that she was moving was not even the worse part of it. During that eighth grade year, I had not been a great friend to her, and so when she said she was moving, she was almost happy. I felt terrible. She actually wanted to be away from me, it seemed. I was so worried and scared that she would not be my friend anymore. Not only that, but she was also moving away as I stated earlier. I was never going to see her, and there was a chance that she did not like me. I was not a happy camper. It was one of the scariest times of my life. I love my friends and I would never want to lose any of them. Other than that time, the scariest experiences in my life have only consisted of small things such as horror movies, my friends trying to scare me, typical nightmares, the power going out unexpectedly while I'm downstairs in my house with no windows... But I digress. That moment was the scariest experience I have ever experienced, even though it was not actually "terrifying".

Journal #13 - Franklin's Virtues

To be frank, this was not my favorite of all projects. I will start by explaining how the project could be made better. There was a serious lack of communication in my group. I ended up having to do the project for all of my other "teammates" but one. I do not know exactly how you would fix that, but it would be nice if something could be attempted. Maybe it was just the people in my group being lazy, but as a whole I heard a lot of complaints about how no one was responding to anyone. I heard during class once that Farmington did not have gmail at their school. Well, that is a major problem for some of them, I would assume. What if they did not have internet at home? I know you have no control over their school, but maybe you could talk to Mr. Piper about getting that fixed. The lack of communication was the major flaw in this.

Despite that flaw that grew increasingly irritating over time, I found that I was gaining something from this project. It was a very independent project (if you do not include the group video). We had to individually find time to write out our analysis, reflect for 24 hours, and put together our video. It taught us how to manage projects like these. Also, concerning the actual information of the project, we learned a lot about Franklin's virtues. In class and out, we read through the virtues and gained a general knowledge of what they were about. However, without the project, I do not believe we would have gotten such and in depth understanding about the virtues. We found ways to connect with them through literature and our own lives, and I feel like that could help us actually put such virtues to use in our lives. Overall the project, where tedious, was helpful in some aspects with few issues which could be easily fixed.

PS: More individual grades would be nice. I did much more work than the other members of my group.

Franklin's Virtues - Literary Analysis

       Throughout history, Franklin has been thought of with huge respect and affection. He accomplished an amazing variety of things in his life. One of the reasons for that is his work ethic, and the reason that he is so well loved by Americans is probably the same. He attributed his morals to the system he devised to make himself a better person, and whether or not they really did is the matter soon to be examined.

 

      Faith can be put into Benjamin Franklin's system because in his autobiography he writes about how well it worked for him personally. Obviously it worked for him, why not other people? He writes, "I was surprised to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined; but I had the satisfaction of seeing them diminish" (Franklin 156-157). His personal affirmation of his system's success gives it a lot of credit. Rather ironically, his word is worth so much because of his impeccable character, and his character was considered so impeccable because of the system of virtues he practiced. The irony is that he was using his impeccable character to give weight to the system of virtues that produced said character.

 

      It may be easy to lie to a single person, or even just a few, but lies become more difficult the more people you try to trick. That makes it a little bit difficult to believe that Benjamin Franklin had the entire world fooled into think that he was an amazing person if he really was not. Even sixty-six years after his death, authors were still practically gushing about the wonders of Benjamin Franklin. Henry T. Tuckerman writes, "Never dawned a self-reliant character more opportunely on the world; at home, illustrating to a new country what perseverance, honesty, observation, and wisdom can effect with the most limited resources; abroad, proving to an ancient regime how independent a genuine man may be of courts, academics, and luxury;" both the most requisite lessons for which humanity thirsted, and both enforced with an attractive candor, a gracious consistency, a modest resolution, which no argument could attain and no rhetoric enhance," (Tuckerman 3).

 

      Benjamin Franklin is one of the most loved characters in American history, and it would not be at all possible for that to be true if he was not such a warm and friendly person. As it is, when today's Americans think of the founding fathers, Ben Franklin is one of the first people thought of, along with other such giants of American history. That is really what we see Franklin as, an intellectual giant that shaped the government and attitude of the entire country.

 

     Based on the above stated evidence, it is pretty clear that Ben Franklin's virtues were very effective. He recognized a change in himself because of them, and also gained the love of his countrymen and people around the world. Is anymore evidence really needed? Franklin made himself a better person because of his virtues, and because Franklin was such a good person our country is a better place.

Franklin, Benjamin. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. New Haven: Yale UP, 1964.
Print.

Tuckerman, Harold, ed. "The Character of Franklin." Benjamin Franklin, Classic Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://fofweb.com/activelink2.aspItemID=WE54&SID=1&iPin=CCVBF019&SingleRecord=True. October 27, 2011.

Journal #12 - The American Dream

The American Dream has not changed much since the beginning of the nation. It began as the act of striving for success, but I have noticed that a lot of people have messed with it over time and made it entirely materialistic. In my opinion, the American dream is that a person can come here and be free to make their own choices and lives their lives as they see best. If a person works hard enough, they can become successful. It is a pretty great thing to strive for. Being successful is very rewarding and fulfilling.

Throughout the years, people have converted the American dream from general success to owning a house, having a nice car, and other material things of that nature. Those things are just products of the freedom we enjoy here in America. It is not possible to truly own a house in Communist countries, and in other corrupted places mobility is almost impossible. In America, people have the freedom to make their own choices and do what they want with their lives, but unfortunately that is not how it works for everyone.

If I had to sum up the American dream in one word, it would be freedom. Maybe this is just me, but I could travel to all ends of the earth trying to find the most freedom I could, and as far as I know America is still the freest country on earth. If you do not have freedom to live your life the way you want, then what is the point of living it at all? It seems to me that if everyone else makes decisions for you, then it is not really your life, but the live someone else is making for you. That is why the American dream is so important. Without freedom, life loses meaning and value, at least for me it does. Being free, having a choice; that's what the American Dream is all about.

Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography

Benjamin Franklin obviously thought a lot about the concept of being virtuous. He spent a lot of time talking about his personal virtues. I think that the virtues Benjamin Franklin tried to work on are very much deistic. Instead of being about specific quotes from the Bible, Ben uses reasoning to support himself in his writing.  He writes his reasons for his virtues and also the reason for his order of virtues and the reason for his system of implementing his virtues. His tactics were rather reasonable, were they not?

After looking up the word, I found out that Deism is "knowledge of God based on the application of our reason on the designs/laws found throughout Nature." Taking that into consideration, it makes sense that deistic morals would also be based on reason, as Benjamin Franklin's are. He puts a good deal of his own thought into his list and system for being a good person. In his autobiography, he also makes sure he explains all of that thought so it makes sense to anyone who reads about his virtues. When explaining the reason for adding humility to his list of virtues, he writes, "I soon found the advantage of this change in my manners; the conversations I engaged in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I proposed my opinion procured them a readier reception and less contradiction; I had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong; and I more easily prevailed with others to give up their mistakes and join with me, when I happened to be in the right." (Franklin 163)

In the passage above, he seems to be explaining that he chose to add humility to his list of virtues because it made conversations better and made arguments easier to win. This virtue was added because he thought it was a good idea, rather than because it was one of the Bible's teachings, and that makes his virtue deistic. He also wrote about how he disliked his Presbyterian church. He wrote that the morals it taught were pertaining to the church only, and not at all relating to how to be a good person in general (Franklin 146). Also lacking was any reasoning in the system of morals his church presented. He stopped going to church for this exact reason, and made his own system of morals.

Likewise, the manner in which he chose his virtues and how he described them are reminiscent of Deism. He writes that he chose to use quite a few virtues with specific meanings to keep himself from trying to focus on too much at once, and from spreading his attentions too thin. He was worried about trying to do too much at once and about failing at everything because of it. The way he went about deciding on his virtues was very rational, and instead of spending his time studying the Bible and basing his system off of the morals it taught, based them off of his own reason. Because all of his virtues and morals are based strictly off of reason, it is safe to assume that Franklin's ways were diestic.

Franklin, Benjamin. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. New Haven: Yale UP, 1964. Print.

"Deism Defined." Welcome To The Deism Site! Web. 26 Oct. 2011.