Kyle's Thoughts

  IGH! An unfamiliar sound to most, this is what echoed throughout the concert venue when Chance the Rapper performed. Not knowing who he was, I thought that Chancelor Bennett was just a typical rapper, composing songs about money, drugs, and violence. As this was my first time intently listening to him, I was surprised at the message in his music. He was on stage rapping about how growing up in inner-city Chicago, summers were fraught with violence and murders. But, the songs that he followed up with were about his faith in God. The polarity in content struck me, and I wanted to learn more about Chance and his testimony. The progression of his albums, I discovered, depicted the profound transformation in his life. His first album focuses on his high school experience and his 10 day suspension- appropriately titled 10 Day . Acid Rap talks about his experimentation with illicit substances. Coloring Book , his third album, is about him accepting Christianity. At the tail-end of this ...

 Before reading "The Convergence of the Twain," I knew it was about the Titanic but that was it. I assumed that it would be a solemn tone, painting the Titanic as a tragedy, like most others do. The connotation I automatically have with the Titanic is sad. However, the poem was not like this at all. It was sort of blaming the Titanic on human hubris and was saying that it was almost meant to be sunk. I got a tone of inevitability from the speaker, almost as if it were obvious that the "unsinkable" ship was meant to sink. This way of thinking makes me question. If we praise something for being a certain way, does that then make its end value the exact opposite of what we were praising it for? And then once it does the opposite, are we to blame society and humans for being to arrogant and prideful because they "hyped" it up? If we were to ask people who lived in the days of the Titanic, would they say that it was unsinkable or would they agree with the speak...

      To be honest, I don't think I've ever really understood the point of poetry. I guess it sounds cool and it has deeper meaning, but why not just say the insightful meaning straight up? I could never appreciate poetry because my mindset was too straightforward. I wanted a solution as quickly as possible and didn't understand what the point of being abstract or artistic was. Now, I can kind of appreciate it a little bit more, but still not as much as a lot of others do.      Through all my other classes, I wanted to have a clear way to get to the correct solution. However, in English there are many "correct answers." This was very hard for me to understand, but I think now I'm getting it a little more. Like many things, it's up to the interpreter. Just like how they say "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," some insight could make complete sense for one person and another may not have gotten anything out of it. This is why I think poetry exi...

     Majority of people know who Luke Skywalker is. If you don't, Google says he is the " Tatooine farmboy who rose from humble beginnings to become one of the greatest Jedi the galaxy has ever known." Generally for entertainment, Star Wars actually has literary educational value, besides learning to speak like Yoda. We are able to realize this value when we compare Luke Skywalker to other characters from other stories, like Siddhartha.     Luke Skywalker at first doesn't want to be a part of this journey, but eventually asks Obi-Wan Kenobi to train him and turn him into a true Jedi. Through the duration of the movie, we are able to see Luke Skywalker's growth as he is able to harness the force.  Siddhartha, much like Skywalker, embarked on a journey to discover a reason or a purpose. His goal was to seek enlightenment and to figure out what he wants to do next in his life. Siddhartha is eventually able to train his mind to not care about materialistic...

Coming into first semester, I was under the impression I wouldn't really learn much because of the new format and the circumstances. In addition, college applications was the main focus throughout October and November. However, I think I have learned a lot of tangible and, I think more importantly, intangible skills. As a writer, I have been able to incorporate more of my voice into my writing. This is because of the writing we do in class, but also because of the sheer amount of college essays I was writing. Along with this, I think I have been able to grow as a reader. Nothing super specific, just a generally better reader. One thing that improved my thinking this semester is the ambiguous nature of this course. There is never one concrete answer, rather, it is up to interpretation and anything could be a correct answer with sufficient reasoning. As my strength has always been STEM classes, I would've thought not having a concrete answer or algorithm to find an answer would a...

How would you describe a color? Of course, you can name things that are a specific color. What is blue? What is green? “Well, the sky is blue and the grass is green. Green is a mixture of yellow and blue. And, teal is like in between blue and green. They’re colder colors.” You can talk about similar colors and attributes that have been given to these colors, but there has to be a baseline understanding of what a color is. This understanding is based on one’s perception and relativity. The sky for you could be purple in my eyes and grass could be red, however we have labeled the sky as blue and grass as green, so that’s what they’re called. To a blind person, you cannot describe a color. Colors (much like a lot of other things) are based on perception and the aggregation of information. Although we can agree on a lot of things to be true, we cannot truly understand what someone else’s perception is. That’s the nature of perception. “All perceptions begin with energy-producing events, ei...

 The American Dream, defined by Google, is  the ideal by which equality of opportunity is available to any American, allowing the highest aspirations and goals to be achieved. It seems like everyone in America is fascinated by this idea. This is extremely reasonable because America was built on this principle. Immigrants come to America for a better life and to set up their family for a better future by leveraging the American Dream. The American Dream is a great thing because it limits nobody. If you work hard, effectively, and efficiently, it seems like you can accomplish anything. America is the only country where this can happen to the scale it does. However, with this dream comes a harsh reality for many. Many people are never satisfied with what they have, which leads to feelings of entitlement and ungratefulness. Willy, for example, believes that he doesn't have what he deserves, when in reality, he has more than a lot of others. He has a family, a car, a house, there's...