WalTman Poem

     First off, an explanation for the title; I keep thinking "WalTman" when thinking of Walt Whitman, so from now on I will call him "WalTman" in these blog posts. If any offense is taken, I will make changes accordingly.

     This time around I chose his poem "I Saw in Louisiana a Live-Oak Growing" mainly because it sort of reminds me of myself. He mentions how lovely and healthy the oak looks despite having no other trees around, and that sort of reminds me of myself since I usually isolate myself from others and feel just dandy. Another reason is that it gives me a hot, comfortable atmosphere whenever I read it, so this is actually something I'd hang in a picture frame.

Walt Whitman

To start off, John Whitman was a fairly (in)famous poet/journalist/essayist from the early 1800's to the late 1800's. He was born in Long Island, New York in 1819 and died in the same location in 1892. Most of his literature was more in the realism area, but also touched base with humanism and transcendentalism. A lot of his work was considered very controversial due to his many sexual themes and references, most notably his work in Leaves of Grass. I'd say he's more of a realist than a romanticist since he would look at some of society's "features" and sort of "bring them into light" rather than make it seem more romantic and fantasy-like.

To be honest, I didn't have any favorites of his mainly because I'm one of the least poetic people I know. If I were to choose one of the poems, however, I'd choose Shut Not Your Doors.

Human Activity on the Earth: Helping or Harming?

[Topic #29; front page, 2nd column, 2nd to last from the bottom]

     There has always been discussion over whether or not our actions on this planet have had any significant impact on it. Are we damaging the planet; are we destroying the planet; are we helping the planet? These are just some of the questions posed by the people of Earth. In my honest and true opinion, I feel that we aren't doing a single thing to this planet that would severely cripple or ultimately destroy the planet. Why is that? Look at it this way: this planet has been here for billions of years for all we know and has survived every natural and artificial disaster that has occured throughout the substantially long time it has existed. What makes us think that we are impacting this great planet just from around a few hundred years or so of pollution and human intervention?


For now, I'll leave it at this with a quote from a person I think was pretty brilliant:
     "The planet has been through a lot worse than us. 'Been through earthquakes; volcanoes; plate tectonics; continental drift; solar flares; sunspots; magnetic storms; the magnetic reversal of the poles; hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment from comets and asteroids and meteors; worldwide floods; tidal waves; worldwide fires; erosion; cosmic rays; recurring ice ages; and we think some plastic bags and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet isn't going anywhere... We are!"- George Carlin

Homework - Intro Post

Hi there. I guess the first thing on the agenda would be an introduction, right?
I'm Zach Aufderheide and I suppose this is going to be my school blog from now on.
Now then, moving on to the important things:
    1. "How my year has been so far/Feelings about this year so far"
    2. "My expectations of Sophomore Year"
    3. "My goals I want to achieve this year"
1. My year has been... average, I should say. I don't find anything interesting or relevant to me most of the time, so it's pretty boring. Day in and day out I mostly just walk in, sit in for a few classes, (maybe) talk to other students, leave, and come back the next day for the same experience. Yup, exciting.

2. I sort of expect this year to be a challenge for my lazy, procrastinating mind, so this should be an interesting year for me. The older students claim that Sophomore and Junior years are the worst out of them all, so come on and bring the hurt already!

3. To tell the truth, I didn't set any goals this year because there's nothing for me to strive for. I know this answer won't satisfy you, so here's something that I guess I want to accomplish in my entire high school life: I want to learn pretty much everything I can about computers - components, coding, maintenance, all that good stuff. I've always been fascinated by technology since it's almost always there as a constant companion in today's lifestyles, so I really just want to delve deeper and learn what makes these things tick.

This is pretty much all I wanted to put into this first post so... Yeah... Insert the abrupt ending right about now.