It Was a Change

It was a year of change. 

I know everyone changes over time, but I wasn't prepared for my exponential growth over the course of this school year. It all started with The Long Fuse (which actually seems like an appropriate title for my entire senior year). After months of procrastination and two days of furious reading, I was convinced that I was going to be defeated by senior year. The start of my senior year, what I thought would be fun, was a harsh reality.

However, after a couple of weeks of classes, I settled in to my usual ways and extracurriculars, and turned in my time consuming and soul crushing summer assignments, the first triumph of my year. School started to become habitual again and my spirits were up (as much as they can be waking up at 5am everyday).

But the beginning of the school year was also the beginning of new leadership positions. Not only was I a new madrigals section leader and captain of my riding team, but I also started teaching a new student at Helping Horse, the therapeutic riding program I volunteer at, and I had about ten piano pieces to learn for my IB Music class (that isn't actually a class this year, so all my work was independent). My year was starting to look busier than ever.

Anyone in school knows I'm pretty quiet and keep to myself. All these new challenges changed that for me. Leadership makes you step up and make yourself known, something I've struggled with for years. This year I found my voice, not necessarily in the classroom, but in other areas of my life. I found myself speaking up and letting myself be heard, and I realized something about myself; I am very very very opinionated and passionate about everything I do. I also realized something else; being overly opinionated and passionate may not always make you the most popular person, but it makes you popular with the right people.

With my new found voice, I also overcame the worst obstacle of all; myself. I've always convinced myself that I wanted to go to some really nice college with huge class sizes, major in biology, and become a doctor. Here's the problem; I hate big classes, I suck at science, and I don't believe in animal testing, so how would I make any discoveries as a doctor? My future was problematic. Somewhere along the way, I had a "no duh" moment and realized I have NO clue what I want to do. So, I stopped worrying about going to some impressive college that would "look good" and I picked a small liberal arts college that I knew I would love aka UNC Asheville.

It was a year of change. Change for the better. Change that I know is for the best. Change that will lead me to a future that is right for me. Change that is scary, but worth it.

In the Mind of Whitman (maybe)

WHITMAN'S NOTEBOOK:

AT A GLANCE:

Initially, I found Whitman's notebook to be very unorganized, but as I scrolled through it again, I kept seeing the word "ship" pop up. 

At one point he says "ship of libertad" (maybe). Either way, it looks kind of like "ship of liberty." 

He later mentions "the last war"which makes me think of how war is supposed to lead to liberty. 

He has some weird drawings of himself? 

The first drawing looks pretty normal in my opinion. It looks like the perception of an outsider maybe?

The second drawing looks like he's depicting himself as outspoken. The facial expression and his hand motions make it look that way at least.

The third drawing looks relatively normal, but seems like it is exaggerating his features. 

The fourth drawing looks like he's depicting himself as introvert or maybe even hiding himself away? 

Then there's this weird drawing of George Washington (?) as a skeleton with a huge heart and an arrow through it. I honestly didn't know what to make of this, other then it seemed to go along with the theme of liberty and maybe ships?

AFTER:

The first thing I noticed after reading was the possible purpose behind him using ship so much. It looks like he used it in a metaphorical sense rather than a literal sense, like "Ship of State" or "Ship of  the Hope of the World."

I also realized the context of Whitman's notebook -- the civil war. It looks like a lot of his notes were about a dialogue with Lincoln, which is a little strange to me. I feel like he didn't actually have any really strong feelings about Lincoln, but planned to use these fictional dialogues to critique society.

It turns out that "the last war" was in reference to the civil war, which I found to be interesting. I can't tell if Whitman really thought this was going to be the "last war" as in everything will be peaceful, or as in everything is downhill from here. For whatever reason, Whitman doesn't strike me as the type of person who would think anything was ever going to be peaceful, so I'm thinking the second interpretation may be more accurate. 

I thought the use of "Libertad" was really interesting. He used the Spanish word for "Liberty" rather than regular English. It sad that no one really knew for sure why he used it, but that it was possibly his way of saying that freedom needed to universal to other nations.

As far as the drawings, I found it interesting that these weren't his depictions of himself, but of others. I feel like the way others depict us is more accurate than the way we depict ourselves. We always look at ourselves in the best or worst lights, which I why I initially thought Whitman drew the images -- because they seemed so extreme. So, when I found out that these were the work of others, I trusted their interpretations more --if that makes sense? All and all, I think Whitman appears introverted, but maybe is more opinionated and outspoken to more friendly faces.

The last drawing is still pretty sketchy (get it?). It mentioned that it was a possible allegory to America as a whole, which made sense to me, but it also bothers me that I won't ever know for sure why Whitman included it. 

So, to organize my thoughts a bit, here's what I think: Whitman is hitting on the themes of liberty and freedom in his writings because of the context of the Civil War and the implications it had socially. I think he also focuses on the idea of other nations freedom and hints at the importance of it. This next assumption may be a bit of a stretch, but I think Whitman also struggled with his personal freedom. I think he was probably an introverted individual who struggled with expressing his opinions vocally. I think he used his poetry as his freedom of expression, but still struggled with expressing his views outwardly.