Today i went to a career fair at Camosun Collage. It was interesting to go to see all the different paths that my life could go down, going to an IB school such as brookes gives me so many options and the possibilities honestly are overwhelming. Just a couple years ago i wanted to be a marine biologist, a year ago i wanted to get into aviation, this year i want to do pediatrics. All these wildly different topics and yet i feel the same passion for everyone of them. Who knows what i will want to do next year? or the year after that? and if i cant decide on what i want to do for more then a year then how am i supposed to choose a career to do for my whole life? I find it hard to grapple with these questions, especially as my childhood comes to a close and grades in school start to really matter i wonder how i will live my life, what i will chase and what i will leave behind.
Author: Emmett
IRJE #6
Currently i am reading a book called ” The Talent Code” by Daniel Coyle. The book is about the inherit meaning of talent, specifically, how it is born and how to harness it. This current chapter i am on is focusing on talent hotbeds, places around the world that seem to breed talent for no discernible reason, such as Brazil and its abundance of star soccer players. This quote here delves into a a theory by the author for why this may be.
“Or consider the scene at the Mermaid Tavern in London during Shakespeare’s day. There, across the river from the Globe Theatre, the major writers of the day-MarLowe, Jonson, Donne, Raleigh,-gathered to talk shop and match wits. Or consider the Academy and Lyceum of Athens, where Plato, Aristotle, and the rest taught, argued, and leanred. ” All of them were concentrated, all of them were simply part of the landscape of everyday life; and all flashed signals that added up to one energizing message: better get busy.
To me this quote is quite intriguing as it uses quite commonly known historical geniuses to prove a point that it is often environments that breed talent. Other researchers on the topic often use environment examples, but by painting people and public discourse as an environment it makes this point much clearer to me.
PW#4
Being Sick
Ive been sick for the past week and it feels horrible. Its back to that sick routine of chugging down cough syrup and pills and feeling fine for an hour before its back to coughing and feeling like death incarnate again. I guess there are some positives to it though. I get to sit at home all day and relax and compartmentalize my life. I get to catch up on my hobbies and interests. I get to do work without being distracted in the comfort of my own home. I get to catch up with my friends after they get home from school. Every part of being sick would be great if i didn’t feel like crap the entire time. It ruins every part of what would be a great time, it just makes me miserable.
PW#3
Picture 14
There once was a very estranged girl, who had become infatuated by the weird and exotic animals of the world. Her parents took quick notice of her estranged interests and quickly attempted to satisfy it. They visited many different animal shops and bought as many strange and wacky animals as they could afford, but in the end they spent all their money. They brought home parrots, lemurs, iguanas, but none of them appeased the girl. This upsetted the girl as she loved her parents very much and wanted them to be happy, but she just could not love the animals. One night the girl woke up and went for a midnight walk to think things over, and she met an old crone who gave her an offer. She pulled out an albino ferret from a small leather bag and gave it to the girl. This ferret was very rare and made the little girl very famous. Her fame translated into lots of money which paid back for all the animas her parents bought her. She grew up with the ferret and eventually got a painting taken of her, which is now a picture in Mr.Macknights room.
PR All Quiet on the Western Front
All quiet on the western front was the most surprising pieces of war media that I have ever experienced. I’ve only ever read one other war book, but I have seen lots of movies and shows based in war and I could immediately tell how this book is a stark contrast to other pieces of war media in the genre. Many different aspects of the book that stuck out to me as unique, but I think the most striking part was the protagonist’s (Paul) tone throughout the book. In these other pieces of media that highlight war, the narrator will often romanticize or glamorize the war and talk very emotionally and at length about various different events that occur throughout. Erich Maria Remarque takes a different approach, writing Paul to have a very monotone voice throughout the book, providing a more grounded perspective on the war which is a breath of fresh air from other war books. The author writes in a way that I very much enjoy, he writes in such a minimal way with no flair that a lot of the surrounding carnage of the war can be left up to the imagination of the reader, giving it a more personal connection which I quite enjoyed while reading the book. One example of this I can think of is the multiple times in class when we spoke about the chapters and what we thought about them, there would always be discussions about different little ways we perceive the book, even with big plot points such as pauls death at the end we still took away different thoughts and disagreed, even though we were reading the same text. This applies to all books of course and is one of the reasons that books are so beloved, but I believe that All Quiet On The Western Front plays into this beautifully with the special way its written, and its monotone tone, which is unique especially for a war book from the 20th century.
PW #2- Liath, the Kindest Man on Earth #1 (part of the PWCU) Brookes Chronicles #2
The evil witch Tish, wanted to make a potion to make herself taller. Sadly, she needed human hearts to concoct this potion, and so she resorted to a life of despicable crime and MURDER to accomplish her goal. Through many sleepless nights of research the evil witch found that the biggest heart in the world belonged to one LIATH DE LEON, who had done so many good deeds that his heart had grown to 100x it’s average size. His good deeds include opening up the first vegan cheese place in Victoria B.C, as well as donating all his proceeds from said vegan cheese place to a vegan orphanage, which had been struggling without his help. This one heart would be enough to make 50 potions for the evil witch, and so she devised a nefarious plan to take his heart. Liath was on his way to a children’s hospital to throw a performance of Hamilton for kids with terminal illnesses, when suddenly Tish burst into the room. Supercharged with the experiments of the Evil Dr. Neil, she started to order her Three-headed Cerbersage to go after LIATH DE LEON, who never flinched in the face of danger. He stared down the three headed beast, and challenged it to a staring contest. The beast had three sets of eyes, and so it was sure it could outnumber the “puny” LIATH DE LEON. “You’re crazy!” the children said, but LIATH DE LEON knew that no challenge was too much for his might. The beast started with his right head, the arrogant and foolhardy side of Cerbersage and confidently stared deep into LIATH DE LEONs pale green eyes.
To be contiuned on the next issue
IRJE 1
Currently i am reading a book called “When we Cease to Understand The World, by Benjamin Labatut. The book is a cross between fiction and non-fiction and focuses on the history of physics and math, and the relationships between the theorist/mathematics, their life, and their work. The current section i am on is about a matmentacian named Grothendieck, who is known for revolutionising geometry and many other fields of math. This excerpt if from page 72 and touches on Grothendieck’s work ethic:
“He was capable of sleeping at will, as many hours as he needed then dedicating the whole of his energy to his work. He could begin working on an idea in the morning and not move from his desk until dawn the next day, squinting under the light of the old kerosene lamp.”
I find it interesting how this implies that to be a genius, to have radical and new ideas, you have to have complete control over your body, (sleeping at will), and that you must dedicate every single waking second to your profession. It seems that to go to the next level of ideas, of revolutionary thoughts, you must have complete control over your body, and let your profession have complete control over you. It really makes me appreciate those who really sacrificed their lives to change ideas for the future generations.
They Shall Not Grow Old Personal Response
This film truly shocked me. It’s the first time that i have really been able to get a grasp on the true horrors of a historical event like this, and it has opened my mind to many new ideas. The way that the film chose to keep every photo and recounting of the war uncensored with nothing cut out was such a new way to experience the story of the war, with no glorification to the actual events was very unique and mature. This new experience gave me countless new thoughts and opinions, but i will focus on one of the simpler and what i think to be the most intreasting. The fundamental root of this thought is how these men could survive these hardships, but to do it and call it an “adventure” and something they would gladly do it again. How could millions of men, nevertheless 15-19yr old boys, be so resilient and tough when faced with the harshest and most tragic condiotions human historty has ever seen? This puzzles me as it seems that these men were all like the heroes of old, scared of nothing and risking their lives for the greater good , such as Achilles or Heracules. But they were all just boys urged to leave from every corner of their home countires and die on the front. I wondor if this is a positive message, that even the most common man can be capeable of incredabile feats when given the chance, or that its a tragedy that the next greatest and most formidiable men we have ever had were wasted and discarded on a pointelss war.
PW#1
(mock yelp review from posh person of our camping trip, for funsies)
YELP REVIEW
I recently went on a camping trip and it was indubitely horrible. First of all, the weather was much too cold for my liking and it was just very drab in general. We went paddleboarding on the second day, but none of the seals wanted to swim with our company and actually swam away at the sight of our boards, how incredibly rude of them. We also had to sit on wooden chairs, eat on wooden tables with wooden cutlery, and sleep in wooden cabins. Too much unfurnished wood in my opinion it was far below my standards if i do say so myself. We also had to hike in this absolutely atrocious gear which was so unstylish and unfit that it made me want too retch overall i will stay in my city where i like it thank you very much.
2/5 stars
Introduction to Mr. Hastie
My name is Emmett and i have been at Brookes Westshore for 4 years, since grade 6. Im an only child, and i live nearby at Thetis lake with my parents and puppy Digby. Although i do have hasty in my name, i am not a sprinter, I have been swimming competitively for 3 and a half years and have swam over 8000km. Other then swimming i also love to surf and hike, as well as play some volleyball every once in a while. I have quite a large interest in music production which is what im basing my personal project off of. I also work at a local pool where i teach kids how to swim.
As a reader my favourite genre of books based on philosophy. My favourite book of all time is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which is a book which conveys interesting anecdotes about complex topics such as quality and classical vs romantical views through the anatomy of a motorcycle. Some other of my favourite books are also Sophie’s World which is a general history of philosophy which is written very well. I also really like Calvin and Hobbes comics because they’re pretty funny.
To be honest i’m not very much of a writer, i mostly like to read. The only times i would write is when being asked to for school, i don’t do much writing in my free time. When i do writing for school it tends to be very standard for an IB student of my my grade and does not have anything for special or interesting about it. I do still like writing though i don’t dislike it or anything like that.