Category: Journal

Max Solomon
Fitz 9th Grade English
Literary Analysis Paragraph
October 30, 2014

“Which would have advanced the most at the end of a month- the boy who had made his own jackknife from the ore which he had dug and smelted, reading as much as would be necessary for this- or the boy who had attended the lectures on metallurgy at the Institute in the meanwhile, and had received a Rodgers penknife from his father?”
-Henry David Thoreau

The best way to learn is by doing not by listening. In Walden, by Thoreau, he asks a question about who would have learned more in a week, one who is learning through hands on experience or one who learns by going to lectures. It has been shown that only about 5% of what you hear is retained and the other 95% goes in one ear and out the other. Why would you risk losing all that information when all you have to do to retain it is let the people learn by doing. In Concord, MA in the 1800's, Henry David Thoreau spoke a lot about how you do not learn from people telling you what you should know, but through doing it yourself. Throughout Walden, Thoreau goes into many specifics about why it is better to learn through doing. One of the lessons that he teaches is the aforementioned lesson of learning by doing not by listening.

“Which would have advanced the most at the end of a month- the boy who had made his own jackknife from the ore which he had dug and smelted, reading as much as would be necessary for this- or the boy who had attended the lectures on metallurgy at the Institute in the meanwhile, and had received a Rodgers penknife from his father?” -Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau states at the beginning of the book that Walden is not for everyone and that would be correct. Walden is a book for those who are looking to learn lessons about life and are willing to change their ways. To not learn anything from this book would mean you are perfect and know everything which, of course is not the case. This small topic in "Economy" about learning by doing not by listening is one of the topics that he talked about that still applies today. Many people today believe that they will learn by listening to the most well known person in their field, but what they don't know is that only about 5% of what you hear is retained. After reading this paragraph did which do you think that you are, a doer or a listener?

Dr. Heckyll & Mr. Jive

10/11/2014

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Walden: Introduction

10/9/2014

"Why should they eat their sixty acres, when man is
condemned to his peck of dirt"-Henry David Thoreau

Today in class we read the first part of Walden by Henry David Thoreau. At the beginning of the book I realized that Thoreau writes a lot like Shakespeare, he uses a ridiculous amount of unknown vocabulary. I also noticed that Thoreau has a very negative attitude towards the world in these first few pages. It almost seems that because he lived a very unique life, when he comes back to the

world, he is an outsider in a way. No one else has had his experience and when he comes back to the normal world, he realizes that "every one lives their lives like machines." One of the things that he mentioned was that it is he feels bad for those who have not had to work for their wealth but had it handed to them either through family or some other means of inheritance. When speaking of this he says, "Why should they eat their sixty acres, when man is condemned to eat only his peck of dirt?". This quote is basically saying, why are the people who don't have to work for their wealth get more than those who work day after day to earn a living. Another thing that I found particularly interesting was that he really didn't like old people. As we grow up, we are constantly taught to respect our elders no matter what. In the first few pages of Walden however, Thoreau mentions that not only are they incapable of giving advice but that they have also lived miserable lives and have no valuable information for people of this generation. He was a very wise man for his time but this is certainly one thing that I don't agree with. It is almost unbelievable that he can say such ignorant and hurtful things, yet for one hundred years people have read this book and thoroughly enjoyed it. My theory is that he is just such a great writer and has such an unmatchable way of saying anything that people are completely blind to the few points that he makes that would be thought of as ignorant or nonsensical in todays world. Thus far, I have really enjoyed reading Walden, and am certain I will continue to enjoy it.

Adversity

10/8/2014

"When adversity strikes, that's when you have to be the most calm. Take a step back, stay strong, stay grounded and press on." LL Cool J

One of the hardest things to deal with in life is adversity. But the most important thing when dealing with adversity in my life was that I always look at the bright side of the issue and remain positive at all times. There is no possible way to go through life without encountering adversity, and while it can be very hard, you must remain positive at all times. It is extremely hard to deal with adversity without staying positive. If you are negative you will almost never conquer your obstacles in life.

September 9th, 2013 marks a very influential day in my life thus far. I was at the first hockey practice of our season that Monday night and was looking forward to seeing my friends from the year before. Everyone was so excited to start our season and as I neared the locker room door (slightly late) the buzz emanating from the room sounded like a swarm of bees. We all got ready while catching up with each other and headed out to the ice.

As we got onto the ice we started practice immediately. Since this year was going to be our first year of checking (legally), we were learning how to check the right way. The goal of the drill was to race around a cone and bump into a partner soft enough to keep them on there feet, but hard enough to knock them off balance a little bit. As I came around the cone I was heading right at one of the new kids on the team and he was slightly larger than I was. When we went to bump, he took it a little too seriously and his elbow slammed into my head. I knew immediately I had a concussion and that my favorite sport was going to be eliminated from my life completely.

As I left the ER that night I was crying. I was not really crying because I was in pain (even though I was) but I was crying because I had no clue who I was outside of hockey. In my life I had always had hockey to fall back on. When I was angry, sad or just bored I could always just get to hockey and you step into your own little world. Everything that is going on in your life has to be left behind in order to focus on your skating. That feeling of the cold air on my face just helped me to let go of everything.

In this situation, I was really struggling to see anything in a positive way. I just couldn't see how my situation could get much worse than it was at that moment and felt like a huge part of me had been almost ripped away from me. After many months of lying in bed with plenty of time to think, I realized that if I just sit around and do nothing about my situation, I will just live a sad life. My childhood at that moment was in my hands. One of the things that I was thinking about was what I could do now that my main sport was going to be out of the question. Suddenly I had an epiphany of sorts. I realized that all these years, while hockey had been great, it also really restricted what I could do because it took up so much of my time. All of the things that I wanted to do I had passed on because I din't have the time to manage school and my sports. By the time I was healed I was already performing in the school comedy as the lead role and attending vocal lessons because I realized that I love to sing and act. Who would have thought that a very sports-oriented kid like me would be interested in singing and acting? I know that I would have never thought that.

The different situations that I have mentioned above are only some small examples of adversity in my life, but those small parts of my struggles have taught me some very important lessons.

Family

10/7/2014

"My favorite things in life don't cost any money. It's really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time."-Steve Jobs

There is nothing more important than family, and last year I learned the hard way that family does not last forever. I recently had a great uncle that I was very close to pass away. He was a great man who was extremely knowledgable and had definitely been around the block. In late April of last year he had a stroke in his small Connecticut home where he lives with his wife. Because his wife is unable to move due to her parkinson's, he was not found for a while and he passed away a few days later. Noel was a great man who touched and effected all that new him in a positive way. He had this way about him that would make people light up anytime he was around. The aforementioned reason as well as his contagious smile led to his death being a big hit to all who new him. Noel meant a lot to me and I always enjoyed spending time with him. He was always in a great mood and while he is not physically with us anymore, there will always be a small part of him in all that knew him. Much of what I just said may sound irrelevant, but fact is, it's not. Noel and Nancy (his wife) were always there for me, and that is where I went wrong. I was so caught up in my own life that I made no effort to visit them and only saw them once or twice a year. Now that I am older and more mature, I realize that I needed to spend more time with them, but it was already to late. I didn't cherish what I had while I had it, and now that it's gone I realize that I made a huge mistake. While this experience has taught me so much, the most important things that I have learned from Noel's death is this. You always need to cherish what you have while you have it because you never know, it can be taken from you in the blink of an eye.

All of Me

9/28/2014

While I was out with my concussion and was looking for things to do other then sports, I started singing a little bit just in the car and stuff like that. I then realized that I really enjoyed to sing and began to take some singing lessons, and then decided maybe I could show my friends a little bit of my singing. So that being said, this is the equivalent to a first draft essay.

Oil Crisis Summit

9/28/2014

"The use of solar energy has not been opened up because the
oil industry does not own the sun"- Ralph Nader

In our recent unit in Global we have been studying the issues worldwide with oil and finding more sustainable sources of energy. At the beginning of our assignment we were all put into groups of two or three and assigned a country to study. What we were studying however was not just the country in general, but how the oil crisis would affect our country and how our country could contribute the solving this issue. I was assigned to a group of Charlie Fitzsimmons and I and we were going to study the situation in Nigeria. We started off our assignment by creating a presentation about what issues our country had with oil and how we could potentially solve it and every group had some interesting points and perspectives. The other countries that were in our activity were USA, China, the World Bank, and the UNDP. That is not a lot of countries, but it was certainly enough to have some interesting conversations.

As someone who does not follow any national or international events, I was very interested in this activity. I learned a lot about how serious issues were happening worldwide and was actually able to find some interesting solutions to these issues. While studying Nigeria I learned a few very important things about the oil issues in that area. As one of the more wealthy African countries, Nigeria produces the most oil out of any African country. Nigeria also is one of the world's largest oil exports having the sixth largest reserve of crude oil at around 36.2 billion barrels of oil. And lastly, Nigeria's mainstay of their economy is oil exports. While I have learned all of these things about what Nigeria has at their current state, I also learned a lot about what issues have risen do to how much oil they have.

All of the aforementioned numbers are just that, numbers and while the numbers matter, they are not as important as dealing with the issues. It is said that nearly half of the oil spills in Nigeria have been caused by oil pipeline sabotage and by groups trying to steal oil. Had these sabotages and other such occurrences never happened the amount of oil and the amount of money that Nigeria gets from oil would be significantly higher. As a relatively poor country in comparison to other countries worldwide, Nigeria needs as much money as they can get. Now, that being said, Nigeria also has an extremely corrupt government. It is estimated that about $400 billion dollars of Nigeria's oil revenue has either been stolen or misspent since the countries independence in 1960. That is a lot of money that if used properly could have helped towards the development of the country. Without all of these issues Nigeria would most likely be a much safer and more developed country but a wise man once said, "where there is oil, there is almost always conflict."

The next stage of our assignment was to sit around a table in our groups and talk about possible solutions to issues worldwide. It is estimated that is oil use continues at it's current rate, the worlds oil supply will be depleted by the year 2021 which is in six years. This part of the assignment was mainly supposed to simulate the meeting that is going to happen with representatives from across the world to find more renewable sources of energy. When the meeting started the main conversation was between the USA, China, the World Bank, and Nigeria. While I was talking to a representative from both of those groups there was another conversation going on between representatives from the USA, China, the World Bank, the UNDP, and Nigeria. Our main goal was to find different ways to slow down oil production and start to rely on more sustainable energy options so that we do not run out of oil and have no alternative energy sources.

In my conversation with the aforementioned groups a few main points arose. The first big thing was that Nigeria has the potential to create a large amount of solar energy but does not have the funds to do so. In talking about this issue, we mentioned a few possible solutions. The first was that the World Bank give us approximately $5 billion to construct a few solar energy plants that cost anywhere from $500 million all the up to about $1 billion. That contribution would be extremely helpful if the World Bank had decided to go through with it but since they did not, the representatives of Nigeria had to find a different solution. The representatives of Nigeria came the decision to sell one third of our oil stock in order to get started on the construction of our power plants. The money from that sale as well as the $500 million contribution from the World Bank would be enough to get us started on the construction of those plants.

The next issue that arose was because of our corrupt government, any money that Nigeria got would be either misspent or just wasted and that was one of the things that the World Bank was going to help with. The World Bank knows that Nigeria could play a key role in solving the oil crisis and that is a big reason why they are so eager to help. As one of the Nigerian representatives, I proposed that because managing money is the World Bank's strong suit, we would have some people from the world bank come into Nigeria and manage all the money that was going to be used for the construction of the power plants. The only issue with this proposal was that as soon as the World Bank left Nigeria, then Nigeria's government would go back to their corrupt ways and that is where the financial consultants came in. The World bank would not only help to manage the money for the construction of the power plants, but would also have a group of people stay in Nigeria for a period of time and help to teach Nigeria how to manage money. I mentioned earlier how over $400 billion dollars of oil revenue had either been stole or misspent since 1960. This money, if managed properly, would have helped Nigeria accomplish a lot, and that is why we do not want this kind of stuff to continue.

The final issue that arose was that like I stated earlier in the essay, a lot of the oil spills as well as the lost revenue was caused by stealing and sabotage. Nigeria's government has not concerned themselves as much with the security of their oil as they have with producing it and selling it. A big part of this is because the money is being spent in other places where it is not needed. Knowing that the USA has a very strong military and is good with security, we proposed a deal with them. We decided that we would give 12% of the profits from the exports of our energy in exchange for their protection. Nigeria does not really want the USA's protection on everything though. They only want help protecting their energy because that is their main source of income.

Throughout this unit I have learned a lot and have found out not only about the issues with oil but also how hard it is to find solutions for such big issues, especially ones that are worldwide. This activity was very helpful and was an extremely good way to simulate what happens in real life situations like this one. Overall, everyone in the meeting got what they were trying to and we were able to solve the issue. While there was some difficulty agreeing with other countries, we were all able to come to a few final decisions that will certainly help solve the oil crisis not only for Nigeria but for the rest of the world as well.

Finally, if you've read this whole thing, put 13 in your comment.

Rosh Hashana

9/26/2014

We come together every year
to honor our religion
Judaism is great

Fifa 15

9/26/2014

Fifa 15 has finally come out and people are raving about it. Last year people became really obsessed with Fifa 14 and it got to a point where it was just ridiculous. Now Fifa 15 has come out and we can expect the exact same thing.

Since the end of last year people have talking about how excited they were for the release of Fifa 15. Everyone talking about how awesome and cool the game will be. I know that many people love playing games religiously, but I am not one of those people. When peopl got obsessed last year it got to the point where some kids would actually not do homework because they were "busy" (playing Fifa).

When things that you are supposed to do in extra time like sports or videogames start to interfere with school then you know that there is an issue. As the newest big thing arrives and starts a new obsession I would just like to tell everyone that if it starts getting in the way of the important stuff like school and application, you need to stop.

Procrastination

9/22/2014

Over my many years at Fenn I have learned many things about myself, things that will help me for the rest of my life. One of the many things that I learned was that if you ever want to conquer your weaknesses and turn them into strengths you have to know what your weaknesses are. Sometimes those weaknesses can be hard to find and even more hard to admit that you have.

Over the past couple of years I have realized

that one of my most frustrating weaknesses is my procrastination. I have known for years that I procrastinate but have done nothing about it, mostly because I didn't want other people to know that I had flaws. Fenn really helped me to realize that everyone has their own flaws and I was not the only one who did not want to admit mine. After just six short years I am in ninth grade and as I look out in all school meeting at the fourth graders in the front row I think to myself, wow, from the time I was in fourth grade to right now as a ninth grader I have changed so much.

As I look back on my entire Fenn career I realized that Fenn has not tried to make me into a flawless person, because flaws are a good thing. Without your flaws you would have nothing to work on, and that is life, building yourself into the best possible person that you could be. I now realize that I don't need to figure out a way to get rid of my flaws, but instead I have to learn how to cope with those flaws and be the best me that I can be.

The Gift of The Magi

9/21/2014

In a land of wealth, how does a couple get by with nothing but a small flat, their poverty, and each other. In O. Henry's, "The Gift of The Magi" two young adults are willing to do anything to keep each other happy. This story just shows that while wealth and the material things are important, nothing is as important as the people that you love. O. Henry did a great job getting his message of selflessness across to the reader. By being extremely descriptive in the story, it allows the

reader to create a vivid image in their head of exactly what is going on in the story. Also, by being descriptive he allows the reader to empathize with both Jim and Della. The story start off by giving you the image of a woman in her cheap, little flat telling us how she only has $1.87 to buy her beloved husband Jim a Christmas present. With that much money, there is no way that she will be able to buy her husband anything that will show how much he means to her. After thinking long and hard about how she could do something sweet for Jim, she came up with an idea. If she sold something that she loved, then she could get something for the one she loved. Della went on to sell her hair, one of her most prized possessions to get Jim a nice Present. A very selfless act to please the only thing that really matters to her. I really loved reading this story because throughout the entire story the message was clear. The message was basically that nothing is even close to as important as you loved ones. In a world of technology and internet, it is easy to lose site of that and focus only on the material things in life. Well, fact is that none of the material things matter if the only thing that truly makes you happy is being with your loved ones. In a story like this one, that is supposed to have an unsaid moral or lesson you can learn a lot. When Jim and Della both were willing to give up their most prized possessions in order to get something nice for each other, it almost tells you what the moral of the story is, selflessness. It's stories like these that help you to learn important lessons in life and help you to think of ways to make yourself a better person, and that is exactly what this story has done for me.

Camp Caribou

9/14/2014

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On Monday the entire senior class took off to Camp Caribou. Before we left we were all buzzing with excitement. Many of us had heard a little about what we were going to do at caribou but had no clue what the actual experience would be like. On most Fenn field trips, the bus ride is an extremely fun part of the trip, and the bus ride to Caribou was no exception. As we took off on the bus we were all ready for a long, long day of driving. Turns out that it was not like that at all. We watched a few great movies as a class, and despite that it was not quiet at all, everyone got to

enjoy the movie. About halfway through the ride, we stopped at a rest stop in Kennebunke, Maine. From past experience at rest stops, all of us knew exactly what we were getting. As the bus door opened to let us out the entire class was up on their feet trying to get by each other. We sprinted inside and there she was... Popeye's Chicken, shimmering in the sunlight like silver on a sunny day. We ran over to Popeye's to hop in the almost empty line. You could hear everyone talking about what to get. I decided upon a delicious 10 piece spicy chicken to share with Sheikh. That's when I realized what I wanted to do with myself. I was going to devote my life to creating the best fast food chicken shop of all time. I'm just kidding. As soon as we finished our lunch we hopped back on the bus and started the second half of our bus ride.

A few hours later, as we pulled into Caribou everyone stopped what they were doing and awestruck looked out the window at where we were going to be staying the next three days. There were the cabins where we would be spending all of our time, there was the dining hall where we were to eat all of amazing meals, and there was all the activities that we would be doing over the course of the next three days all around us. If you thought we were excited before, this was a whole new level of excitement. Once again as the door opened we were all standing and pushing our way past one another to get off the bus. We got out of the bus and standing in front of the cabins were a few of the counselors that would be staying with us and helping us out for the next few days. We all gathered around them in a large semi-circle and waited for them to speak. After everyone was settled down and quiet the counselors began introducing themselves, each one in a different accent. They explained the rules and other such information even though most of us were to excited to be listening.

I completely forgot what we did the first day because I was so tired by the time we got off the bus. The only thing I remember is some of the things that we did at dinner. Before each meal everyone gathers around to say grace, which sound a little weird to those who are not Christian, but is not really a religious thing at Caribou. We then get sent up to get food one table at a time. The food is outstanding and is the first camp food that most people in the class have enjoyed. After every meal we would then gather in a large circle in an empty area of the lunch hall and anyone who wanted to would teach everyone else a cheer or song that they knew. In my opinion the best was definitely Greasy Greasy Grand-mammy. The first night we all got a great night sleep and woke up ready for whatever was coming next.

When we woke up on the second day, we all headed to breakfast. We did the same thing. got called up table by table, said grace, and then did cheers. After every meal there was free time where we could do anything we wanted. Our free time usually consisted of soccer, paddle tennis, and football. It was a very sports oriented camp, which for a group of 36 fourteen year old boys is great. The second day was our ropes course day. We started off with the lows ropes which consisted of a twelve foot wall that everyone had to climb without and footholds or handholds, a disgusting pit of water with a rope in the middle that we somehow had to get, a spiderweb that everyone had to get through without using the same hole twice, and a leap of faith where you had to jump from poles different distances away and grab on to a trapeze.

My group started with the nasty pit. We did not have much trouble with figuring this one out. We tied a bunch of sweatshirts together and tied a shoe to the end too add weight. We then swung our massive rope until we caught the rope-swing and swung everyone across. Next we had the spiderweb which we also did not have any trouble with we all just crawled or got lifted through different holes. Next was the twelve foot wall where we just lifted each other up until we could grab the top or have someone up on top pull us up. Last we had the leap of faith. This was more of an individual activity so we went one at a time jumping for the trapeze. Most of us were successful on one or two of the levels but once we got up higher we just couldn't reach the trapeze. After finishing these activities we headed to the high ropes course which I was not able to participate in so I won't really talk about.

After dinner that night we had out sort of ceremonial campfire with the entire grade where we could tell jokes, sing songs, tell riddles, or just talk about anything we wanted to. The highlight of that was OG singing his song, What a Jew which made all of us laugh. After the singing and the other stuff stopped, we got to just hangout around the campfire, roast s'mores, and talk. We then retreated to our bunk and fell asleep. We woke up the next morning to do the aqua zip, a huge 50 foot zip line into the water. You climb up about fifty feet on a tree and get onto a little platform at the top. One of the counselors at the top then clips you into the zip line and you just sort of walk off the platform and get to almost fly across the water. It is really one of the most fun thing I've ever done, and while some people didn't do it, those who did loved it.

I have talked a lot about what we did but have neglected to mention what we learned, or at least what I learned. Throughout the trip almost everyone hung out with people that they didn't think that they would. Part of that was that our class is a lot smaller than it used to be and it brought all of us closer together. Part of it was that we really got to know one another more as the trip went on. We got to learn the importance of teamwork and how without teamwork you would not be able to do so many different things. We learned that while being independent is important, you can not rely on yourself for everything, and most importantly, we learned to trust. Normally when you think of trust, you think of trusting other people, and while that is part of trust, there is also a much more important sort of trust. We had to learn to trust ourselves. We stretched outside of our comfort zones and had to not only believe in ourselves but trust ourselves to do the right thing.

There is not always going to be someone there to watch your back or to look after you and when that time comes you have to be able to trust yourself to make the right decision and to do what has to be done.

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The start of something New

9/6/2014

As we come into the new year as seniors all are excited. Everyone's thinking about how fun senior year will be, how they are the leaders of the school, and of course, the one thing that is on everyone's minds, schools.

The whole process of school applications is going to begin in a very short time for every single one of the seniors, and that can be stressful. Some might have a pretty good idea of where they want to go, while others have absolutely no clue. Some are going to public school, while some are going to private. There is just such a wide variety of options and everybody has their own unique view of all schools.

While all the secondary school placement stuff is very stressful and difficult, that should not really be what you are focusing on right now. I'm not saying that it should't be on your mind, I'm just saying that at this very moment that should not necessarily be your top priority. We just began our year as seniors and to have to be focusing so much on switching to a new school already is really a little bit frustrating.

As little fourth graders we looked up to those seniors. They were so cool and all of us just longed to be in their position. Now, we are in their position and so many of us are so caught up in school placement that we lose sight of what being a senior is all about. We are the leaders of the school. That's really an awesome experience to be able to have and it would be a shame to waste it just going through the motions.

As Ferris Bueller once said, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it." Don't let your senior year at Fenn just breeze by. Stop and look around, enjoy yourself and then you can get back down to business. I know that secondary school placement is important and that you will have to start doing that stuff very soon, but don't forget that there are other things in life besides just work, work, work. I challenge all of you seniors to make an effort at least for part of the year to take a break from the school stuff and just enjoy yourselves.