Nick Buehler's Blog

When I think of an albatross I think of something like nature guiding you and then being shot down by a person. I’m not very sure what some albatrosses would be in our life today. Maybe if a kid believed in God and followed the Holy Spirit through his life and when he got to an older age and someone told him that God wasn’t real and shot down his dreams. Also I think an albatross could be looked at a leader or role model and at the same time it can be looked at like a bad influence or a distraction. A good example of an albatross could be my dad, because he is a good role model in my life and I look up to him. In school a good albatross could be the principal, or maybe a teacher you look up to. I think a bad albatross or something that distracts us at Moeller would be our laptops. You can play games, surf the web, and basically get away from school when you’re at school. This is a major distraction, but could be solved. Maybe Moeller should get rid of all of their technology and just go back to notebooks. Now I’m not agreeing with this idea, it’s just a response to the bad albatross. I think it could help kids with their grades and study habits, but at the same time, we have to release that its 2011 and we need technology for numerous things. 

Ode on Andrew Wansik

Andy, Andy, oh my Andy

How much I love you, and how much I hate you

You fill me with joy and happiness

What would I do without you

You’re like a dog, never mad, never sad

Always running around like a monkey in the jungle

Always got my back like were under attack

Through good times and bad times

Oh how much I love you, and how much I hate you

You’re my boy, my dowg and my dude

P&B baby

                My ode on Andrew Wansik and John Keats ode on A Grecian Urn don’t relate that much to one another. They are both odes and we both use metaphors and imagery, but that’s about it. I wrote mine about a person and he wrote his on a Grecian Urn. Keats ode is much longer than mine, and has different rhyme schemes. I tried to use imagery and metaphors, like when I compared Andy to a dog and monkey. I tried to show the love between one another and the joy as well. Overall I thought it was hard to write, but I am happy with how it turned out.

“Lost youth” has been an issue in the past and it still is today. In the past children who were chimney sweepers had terrible lives.  Their jobs were miserable; they worked in a bad environment, sometimes having to work for nineteen hours. If they tried to escape they would be beaten, some children would be shackled and become slaves. In some cases parents even sold their children in these types of lives. It just doesn’t seem like the right thing to do. Song of Innocence by William Blake is saying that if they do what they are told then they will be set free. This is just naïve because they are saying that everything now is going to be fine in the next life. Another one of Blake’s poems is Song of Experience, which is about lack of expectation with human nature and society. They are saying that one entering a state of “experience” sees spite clearly, but tries to imagine a way out. So what are some effective ways to fight social injustice? Well a lot of Moeller mentor groups are already helping by supporting a child from Unifat. Mrs. Ring a couple years ago started a program called Unified for Unifat, which helps kids that went through social injustice. Each mentor group gets a child and has to raise money for him/her so they can go to school, eat, and buy clothes for a whole year. This is just one way that we can help. You can also help by charity funds, programs, and much more.

“My Hometown” by Bruce Springsteen is a great song that talks about a boy taking ownership of his hometown. As the boy grows up, the town changes. Once the boy grows up to be a father, he ends up telling his children the same thing that his father told him. Overall the song is telling us about how his childhood was better, and how those are the memories that keep you going through your life. It shows us that things will change in life, but you just have to deal with it and move on. The next poem we read was “Line composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey” by William Wordsworth. Throughout the poem you feel different moods, like sometimes is calm and then it will be tense. The writer talks about his love for the nature and this shows how he uses nature to escape from the world. Sometimes when he needs to escape instead of going out in the nature, he will look at pictures. It’s just like “My Hometown”, they both uses memories and connections to bring back the joy in their lives. The no impact project as whole tries to promote behavioral change and enables the public to experience their own impact on the environment.  The Lenten season is coming up and I think a good why for me to try to become closer to nature and decrease my footprint, would be giving up watching TV or playing video games. This way I am saving energy and this will also make me go outside more and experience nature more.

Humans always need the newest technology

                Always wanting something better and faster

                Never satisfied with what they have

But why

                Why can’t people just be happy with what they have

                Why do people have to have the newest technology

                Is technology really helping us

Why don’t people just go out and enjoy nature

Is it because people don’t like the sights or smells

                Or is it because people feel insecure

                Humans have to have their cell phones

                If they don’t they loose connection to the world

                Or is it because of what our world has come to

                We have to have technology to survive

The sonnet that I wrote was a Petrarchan sonnet. A Petrarchan sonnet consists of 14 lines. The first 8 are supposed to be a type of question or a problem and the last 6 are answering those questions or problems. I wrote about humans and technology, showing how we need the newest technology, that way we can still be connected to the world. I was trying to show that we really don’t need all this technology, and sometimes we just need to break away and relax a little. This relates to Wordsworth poetry, in that they both talk about technology and nature. I don’t think that we need technology all the time, I think we need to sometimes just take a step back and really just enjoy nature and all of the beautiful sights.  

The Industrial Revolution was in a time period where major changes started to happen.  Before the revolution life was simple, there were no factories, no product or machines. It was like one city. People could work at home and be peaceful living on their farm. Many people seemed satisfied with their lifestyle. During the revolution there soon became a mass production of goods. People would have to go into work, instead of working at home. They used water and wind to do tasks. All of the employee’s relationships changed with their bosses.  Then after the revolution there was an abundant of factories and most of the jobs were done by machines. Child labor was starting to be used more and more. Instead of one big city there were many cities, most of them being over populated and dirty. The machines caused a lot of smoke and made the city dirty. Peoples working habitats were unsafe. The Industrial Revolution overall was the turning point of technology, because of the revolution technology grew at very high rate.

After taking the footprint quiz, my results were that if everyone lived a lifestyle like mine, we would need 5.24 earths. Now at first I thought that this was a high number, but I soon came to realize that it wasn’t too bad. It could be cut down a little, and so could everyone else’s. If we all just changed the little things in our lives, I think it would make a big difference. It’s easier said than done, but I think it can happen. Taking the quiz really helped me see how I was living compared to everyone else. It also helped be me figure out what I can change in my life to make this world an overall better place.