Today (May 25th) I went to the doctor’s office to get a steroid injection in my wrist called cortisol I had gotten this because I have chronic tissue damage and this will help speed up the healing process other than all these benefits it hurt a lot more than I had anticipated which is why I was not at school today. But on the bright side, people have to basically do everything for me like make me food bring me water, and stuff like that and I am really hoping that this injury will go away soon because it is quite annoying and restricting me from everyday life things.
Author: Aidan
IRJE #8 Aidan Bisgrove
1984, by George Orwell, is a story of a man questioning the system that keeps his futuristic but dystopian society afloat and the chaos that quickly escalates once he gives in to his curiosity to be free from others’ outrageous rules.
“Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.” (p. 123)
This quote from the book explains that the political party or the controllers are trying to make it so they are not able to think for themselves and what they are trying to do is make it so that whatever they say all of these people will copy and follow exactly what they want them to basically make them their slaves and if you disagree with any of this it is punishable by death.
Personal Writing #7 Tifino Aidan Bisgrove
I went to Tinfino on Friday morning and arrived at the lodge at 3 30 after many unnecessary stops and back pain. When we got to the lodge it was fun for a while because of the pool and hot tub next to our cabins but after we got out the night was pretty dry and annoying because I lost my phone until the following day. But the next day (Saturday) was fun because we went surfing around 12 pm and we did that for about an hour and a half and it was the most fun I have had in a while only I did wish we went for longer because it seemed like the time went by a little to fast and after we went surfing I went into town and had dinner with Mateo and Dylan and we drank an unhealthy amount of water. Once we were back at our cabins we went to the pool again for about 45 minutes then went into our cabins and goofed around in our cabin for the next 4 or 5 hours then went to make smores till 10 pm went back to our cabin and had more food and went to bed.
Personal response to Romeo and Juliet Aidan Bisgrove
Romeo and Juliet, The story of two lovers. Even though tons of people say that this is one of the best plays I could not say the same as I felt this play was very strange, strange as in the costumes were very unappealing to look at and strange in how they fell in love so fast as well as the very aggressive kissing from Romeo. Another emotion that was very present while watching this play was awkwardness because of how much kissing there was and how fake it seemed the one emotion that was one I wasn’t expecting was loneliness although it was extremely corny it made me realize how lonely life can be and once you find the right person your life can change drastically like in this play.
IRJE 7
1984 by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about a world that has no free thought and is very restricted for some and the main character winston smith is in the worst position. He is in the outer party which means he is being monitored at all times 24/7 and has absolutely no freedom.
Thoughtcrime, they called it. thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get to you.
This quote here makes you feel sympathy for him but also makes you feel lucky to have the freedom that we have today because it wasn’t always like this. and this reminds me of Brave new world in the sense that they are both very restricted to one way of thought and the people at the top want people to think or say this and only this and if you do not follow rules then you will be exiled or in this case arrested and sent to prison for crime.
Personal Response Brave New World
Brave new world by Aldous Huxley. This book was much more enjoyable to read than all quiet on the western front because brave new world was more of a fiction book rather than all quiet on the western front which was based on actual events. One of the characters that made this book more interesting was bernard because he was showing strange ideas and opinions and that made the controllers of this perfect society mad and threatened to banish him to a remote place where he could not “disturb the peace.” Another character that I liked is John or the “savage” I like john because he was like a complete outcast and thought that the society that these people were living in was terrible and he was very unimpressed by it all these two characters definitely made the book more interesting because they weren’t following what the others thought they had their own ideas and their own opinions and were not scared to share them even if there were consequences. The plot of this story was very slow in the beginning I thought and honestly was a good thing because it made me want to keep reading the book and trying to figure out what was going to happen next. The imagery in this book was also excellent just like in all quiet on the western front except this one was a little more relatable. When I was reading this book it gave a very strong image in my head like when the babies were being made in the factory I sort of imagined it like that scene from the matrix when they are next to thousands of unborn people being conditioned to whatever the people wanted them to do. The setting that this book is in is quite similar to our society maybe not yet but possibly in the future, I think that in the near future, we will have a drug similar to soma, and most people will take it and get stuck into this constant loop of relying on this drug to support their life. I also believe that we will factory create babies and I don’t mean like create them I mean alter their DNA code to possibly cure diseases that this baby may possibly get. In the end, if you like reading fiction books I would honestly recommend this book.
Personal Writing #6 Sickness
On Sunday I went to the gym with logan and we were doing back mid-way through the workout he let out the most disgusting cough I already knew it was over for me but he later said “I’m basically recovered” “basically” I replied I was scared for my life because I did not want to get sick and of course, before I had known all of this I was spotting him and all that and being extremely close to him. I went home and went to bed because we went late and woke up the next morning with the same cough and sore throat which is that he had. I was so mad because even though staying home is nice it gets very boring after the first 5 hours and even though I have all this spare time to do homework there is something about not doing anything throughout the day that makes you very lazy and I only got a very little amount of work done which I regret every time.
IRJE #6 Aidan Bisgrove
In the book Lord of the flies by William Golding there are a bunch of boys stranded on an island trying to stay alive and make themselves a government or rather give roles to each other to try and sustain there. While some people are happy with their roles other people prefer to fight over who the leader of the groups are etc… and most of them if not working are fighting with one another.
“Fear can’t hurt you any more than a dream. There aren’t any beasts to be afraid of on this island . . . .Serve you right if something did get you, you useless lot of cry-babies!”
This quote was amusing to me when I first read it because they hate each other so much but at the same point they need each and every one of them to survive so they have to deal with all the dumb or annoying people stranded with them
Personal writing #5
Sickness
On Monday morning I woke up with a little bit of a dry throat and I assumed it was because I had not drank enough water the day before which I do a lot so I got out of bed to make myself cereal and a glass of water and it soothed it until the end of 4th block at school then I realized I had some sort of sore throat (I had strep throat ) even though a had a sore throat I went to the gym after school don’t know why but I did then mid-way through my workout I wanted to die because it was hurting so bad so I finished as soon as I could and went home and when I got home I was munching those recolas (sore throat medicine) like they were chips and I did that all throughout the night and I knew that was gonna have terrible sleep because I would keep waking up with a really bad sore throat so I was really dreading it but I knew I had to get good rest so I had an early bed time at about 8 30 which didn’t help at all because I felt even worse the next morning. and now its Thursday and I don’t know if I should go to school tomorrow.
Brave New World
In the book “Brave New World” By Aldous Huxley a dystopian novel where everything is supposedly “perfect” with no poverty suicide or anything like that ow they do this is they take this drug called soma which basically makes them happy when they aren’t supposed to and they take this drug when they start feeling any sort of drought throughout the day. At the beginning of the book, we are shown the “Bokanovskys process”
Bokanovskys process repeated the director and the students underlined the words in their little notebooks. One egg, one embryo, one adult – normality. But a bokanovsified egg will bud will proliferate, will divide from eight to ninety-six buds, and every bud will grow into a perfectly formed embryo and every embryo into a full-sized adult. Making 96 human beings grow where only one grew before. Progress (p. 4).
This quote shows the Progress of this perfect world and the crazy population production can get in this world and it will only get crazier as time goes on. Even though they say that this world is perfect it’s not and will never be because something can always be produced faster better stronger etc… This proves that no matter how hard you try nothing can be truly “perfect.”
Daniel T Willingham Outsmart Your Brain
After reading chapter 5 of outsmart your brain by Daniel T Willingham, I learned different ways to help comprehend information. His first strategy was to briefly read over whatever you were reading and take notes of the main ideas and or headings in the book so it is easier for you to understand the main/ important ideas in the text and makes your learning more time efficient.
In his book, he says that new readers are most likely to just highlight what they think is important even though it may not even be that relevant they may just be highlighting it because the book is hard and he thinks that when new readers read a harder book they may just skim over the book highlighting whatever because they think that it is boring just like classes and or lectures we kinda just assume that it is going to be boring so we kinda just don’t pay full attention to it missing dome rather important details.
His second tip was to make questions as you are reading to help you focus on what you want to know for example if a heading or main idea says “Meat only diet” a question to ask yourself could be “what are the benefits or disadvantages to this particular diet?” after you have done these two things you can start to pick up what all of this means and all of its topics now you can start answering all of these questions that you have taken notes on. He also suggests that you put down words that you do not understand and read them out loud once you are done reading.
This brings us to is third strategy taking notes while you are reading for example you write down the “meat only diet” and you find the answer of what it means do not wait until you have read the whole book chapter etc… stop at the end of the sentence of whatever and write down what you have read so you do not forget to write I down later on when you are done reading.
Personal Writing #4
Wednesday, Jan 18th the whole school had a ski trip to mt. Washington. I was extremely excited because I had not been skiing for 10 years and wanted to try it out again I honestly thought it would be easy and to my surprise, I was very wrong because I sucked at it and could barley stand up without falling. for the first 3 hours, I was failing every 10 to 20 seconds and was so fed up with the ski trip and wanted to quit and eat lunch until Dylan and I got lost and didn’t know our way back to the lodge so we had to ask some random people near the ski lift if they knew where the lodge was and they told us that we were a pretty far distance away and that we would have to go back up the ski lift and ski back down the mountain to get tp the lodge obviously I wasn’t too excited because that was like an hour more of fear for me but we only had 30 minutes so when we got to the top of the mountain I had to try not to fall or else we wouldn’t be able to eat lunch because we had a specific time limit that we had to eat lunch in which was 12:00 to 12:30. So we raced s fast as we could down the mountain and aculay made it down decently quick but we were still a little late for lunch but it was okay in the end and it honestly made me better at skiing because I didn’t have a choice but to get better or else I would have been stuck on that mountain for a lot longer than I would have wanted.
Utopia A Perfect World
My ideal utopia (A perfect world) would be a place where universities were not so expensive and reading books were a lot more interesting as well as doctors and hospitals were able to cure any and every disease/infection ever. I would also want violence or suicide to not exist because millions every year die because of these causes. Although some may say that this perfect everything would be amazing I think after a while this could get quite repetitive and boring because nothing would feel hard you wouldn’t have to struggle to achieve anything and that is why the world that we live in today is very nice because hard things don’t come easy and they can be very rewarding and all the anxiety sadness and heartbreak fuel us as humans to do better and without dopamine and anxiety people wouldn’t do anything with their lives because everything would be too easy to stress about and I think that if this were to happen people would get lazy and we would not advance as much technologically in the future because no one has enough drive to try and make the world better. I think that the perfect life is one that you must work for not one that is just given to you.
IRJE #4
In the Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood, There are two maids talking to each other when a man walks up to them slowly and starts proposing an idea to them that women should not be going to go find jobs they should be staying home with the kids and feeding/providing for the children while the men go out and work.
“We can make things so much better! The women won’t have to work they can stay home with the children isn’t this great!” He says
“Better never means better for everyone,” she says
“Its the right thing trust me” he says and walks off
This was a very realistic saying and if you think about what she is saying it has a lot deeper meaning and is usually true in most cases. Someone will always be unhappy with the choice that’s just the way it is.
IRJE #3
In the Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood is a science fiction tragedy novel about a woman living in sexual slavery. Olfglen a character in the book keeps trying to make the men who are basically controlling her but she wants do things that she wants to do but the men keep refusing.
“But i want to do things as well, is all,” she says grumpy again
“No you must finish what you been asked”
“But cant I do the chores after?”
“No” He repeats angrily (p. 287)
This is a sad part in the book in my opinion because the women in this book are trying very hard to take a bit of control over thier lives but cant and arent even coming close and it makes it even harder because there are not many women that wanted to fight for thier rights at this time anyways
Personal Writing #3 Aidan Bisgrove
On Monday, Nov 21st I went to Tim Hortons again with Armando and Dyan this time and we left at 12:00 sharp and we walked which took us 8 ish minutes because we ran there and when we got there I bought them both ice caps, and me a donut. I only bought them stuff because we made a bet and I lost the bet so after we got food we start walking back. When we come to the opening of the thrifty a truck came up and we were about to cross Dylan and I let the truck go through but Armando had other plans so instead of just lifting his hand up in a thank you gesture he stood in front of the truck and put his hand up almost like he was commanding the truck to stop and while he had his hand up he started getting lower and lower to the ground and at the once he passed and so did we he had almost fell onto the ground and on the way back we were laughing so hard because of how stupid he looked whilst doing whatever he was trying to do.
The Handmaids Tale IRJE
The handmaid’s tale by Margaret Atwood is a science fiction tragedy novel about a woman living in sexual slavery around the year 2005. The main characters in this book are Serena joy, Olfglen, and professor pieixoto. This book shows how unfairly women were treated back a long time ago and it shows how people were abusing their power.
“This week Janine doesn’t wait for us to jeer at her. It was my fault, she says. It was my fault. I led them on. I deserved the pain.” (pg 72)
This shows that in the book the women were told to blame themselves for everything even if something like sexual assault were to happen to them It’s important because people who read this book should recognize the unjust way of thinking and oppose sexism such as this.
In my honest opinion, this book is very insightful and brutal at the same time and I think that it is worth a read if you are interested in it.
Annoying Tim Hortons Experience W Armando
On Tuesday, Nov 8th at 12:00 o’clock sharp, Armondo and I went walking to Tim Hortons because the food for lunch was garbage. We arrived at Tim Hortons at 12:14 pm and when we got in I ordered two turkey bacon clubs Armondo ordered hot chocolate and farmer wrap after we ordered we sat down and started waiting after about 3 minutes Armando’s hot chocolate was ready. Since we had to be back at the school at 12:55 we kinda had to hurry so we wanted them to finish our order. After 10 minutes Armondo got his farmers to wrap and I was jealous because I was starving and also kinda confused about how I didn’t have my sandwich yet so another 10 minutes passed and at this point, I have been standing there for 20 minutes and I’m getting pretty mad that my stuff hasn’t come out yet. Suddenly the employee calls out Lucas and he was holding a turkey bacon club which is what I ordered no one was taking it so I took it because I assumed he said my name wrong. So another 5 minutes go by and my second sandwich still hasn’t come so I asked the people that work there if I can get my second sandwich and the guy replied “You already got your second sandwich” and I said no I didn’t look it is only bad and then he started to argue with me in front of all of these people but eventually he gave me the sandwich after all this we left Tim Hortons and I opened my first sandwich and I take the first bite and I tasted kinda weird so I looked what was inside and it was the completely wrong sandwich which at that moment I wanted to go back and just yell at the dude for making my life miserable but I realized that, that would just be childish and so we walked back and spending 20 minutes longer than we should have. THE END
Personal writing #1
On the first weekend of October, my family and I went to the mainland to go to my dad’s friend’s wedding. We met at a beach not too far from the city and it was very late out. Mid-way through the wedding, the wind started to get abnormally quick and started to mess up everything because everything was paper plates and plastic forks which are very light after about 30 minutes of heavy wind they had to call off the wedding because everything was flying around and it was not the way they wanted to get married so they arranged it for the next day but we only booked one day up there so we had to come back to Langford where I live now and we missed the wedding but it was fun even though it was very windy and would do it again if given the chance.
All quite on the western front
The book all “quiet on the western front” by Erich maria remarque made me realise some of the very bad things that no one talks about, about WW1. The book is written from a solider named paul baumer a young 19 year old who joins the army to help serve for his country with his school friends. But after a very short period of time in the front lines of the german trenches they realised this was not something to play around in.
This author used alot of descriptive words to keep people engaged in the book. I think one of reasons this book was so engaging was because he did not make the war seem any less cruel than it accualy was the author just wanted to share a very honest and uncencored point of view on how the war accualy was. Near the beggining of the book one of pauls friends “franz” was hurt while in battle and paul talked about his death in close detail and it really showed the brutality that these soliders went through at a very young age.
As we could imagine seeing your friend or peer dieing right infront of you may not take a toll on your mental health immediatly but for most later down the line of the surviving soliders could never be the same because of what they had saw during WW1.
This book shows how much the soliders have been through not only physically but mentally as well. As they are risking their lives to protect thier country and protect the women and children at home and they are doing this all alone and depend on theselves in the battlefield.
In conclusion I enjoyed this book mostly because of how uncencored it was and showed the true brutality of WW1 and I accually did learn alot from this book and I think it is very important to never forget this event in history because these soliders fought for everyones freedom and our safety and that is not something everyone is willing to do.
Blog post
My name I Aidan I am from Canada victoria I have lived here my whole life I like to work out. My hopes for this year are to make sure I do my homework before I do anything else because I have a habit to procrastinate. My expectations for this year are that you can teach me well and I can learn what you are teaching me and I will try my hardest to get good grades as long as I am provided with things that are needed to do well.