64 Degrees and Cloudy (Seis)

Note: I used the uncut version of the video when I was doing this...that's why some things differ a tiny bit. Please don't kill me for it.

In today’s world, it has become commonplace to hear of violence in schools. Schools are supposed to be havens for learning; instead, it is not uncommon to hear of a student bringing a weapon to school to kill others as well as to take his own life. Most can only look at that student with hatred; it is rare for someone to examine the reasons behind the actions. Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy” attempts to do just this. The speaker in “Jeremy”reminisces on Jeremy's life, placing the blame for Jeremy's murder/suicide on Jeremy's parents and himself.

The video begins by phrases such as “3:30 in the afternoon,” and “64 degrees and cloudy.” 3:30 in the afternoon is around the time that students leave school. 64 degrees and cloudy describes the weather, which is cool and pleasant. Then, the lyrics begin by painting a picture of Jeremy’s feelings. “With him on top lemon yellow sun, arms raised in a V,” describes Jeremy’s sense of victory over all of those who hurt him, who “lay in pools of maroon below.” He is alone on top of the sun, showing that he feels alone in his life. His parents aren’t there for him; they don’t care about the things he did, and, perhaps to Jeremy, this means that they don’t care whether he lives or dies.

The song continues by switching to Jeremy’s life at school. The speaker describes teasing Jeremy, believing the child to be harmless. “Ohh, but we unleashed a lion.” This describes the surprise the speaker felt as Jeremy hit him in the jaw. “My jaw left hurtin’…ohh dropped wide open just like the day…oh, just like the day I heard.” This further explains the speaker’s surprise, this time at Jeremy’s final action that hurt a lot more people than just the speaker. The speaker believes that what Jeremy did was partially his fault; he believed that him teasing Jeremy, as well as Jeremy’s parents not being there for him, indirectly caused Jeremy to snap.

One of the most repeated lines in the song is “Jeremy spoke in class today.” This phrase does not refer to the fact that Jeremy, shown in the rest of the song to be a fairly isolated child, answered a question. Instead, the line refers to the fact that Jeremy’s actions spoke louder than any words he could have said; Jeremy killed his classmates and himself, shown in the video through newspaper clippings of school shootings as well as Jeremy placing a gun in his mouth. The speaker, after hearing about what Jeremy did, was remorseful. “Try to forget this….try to erase this,” shows that the speaker tried to forget about Jeremy. He tried to forget not only what Jeremy had done, but also what he himself had done to Jeremy. He tried to erase it from his memory so that he could forgive himself for it.

The video ends by showing the phrases “3:30 in the afternoon,” and “64 degrees and cloudy.” This shows that, although the speaker remembers Jeremy and believes that what he did was an antecedent to Jeremy’s actions, the rest of the world does not remember. To everyone else, life carries on. Jeremy’s speech means nothing to those who did not witness it, and if the world does not remember, will it ever really end?

“None of those freaky Virgos here." (Cinco)

I must admit that I was not excited to sit and write this particular blog. To evaluate yourself is not an easy task. It's easy to come off as arrogant, and it's also easy to come off as self-loathing. Hopefully I can strike a balance between the two.

Alright now.

Lets start with strengths. I think I have a decent vocabulary, and I think I'm pretty good at making things cohesive. I can take a subject about which I know nothing and make it sound like I know what I'm talking about. Also, I'm a stickler for grammar. Of course, my weaknesses, in my opinion, far outweigh the strengths.

One of my biggest problems is that when I sit down to proofread, I wind up changing everything. Because of that, sometimes things don't flow as well as they should, because sometimes I add things and sometimes I subtract things and things just don't flow. A lot of times, I tend to leave out words or even entire words without noticing, causing my readers to scratch their heads and wonder what the heck I'm talking about. Unfortunately, it's rather common for me to do that. Add that to the fact that I really hate proofreading and that I hardly ever do it, and you can have a big mess on your hands. Another thing I tend to do is that when I feel very dispassionate about a topic, I put it off until the very last minute and throw words together. When I start to get to the end of my essays and even my short stories, I tend to rush things out of pure boredom. Even if it's something that I really like writing about, I'm always ready for something new. That hurts the cohesiveness a lot.

How do I improve things? The only thing I can think of is to practice. I don't really have a problem with that; I love to write. It would probably help to get someone else to proofread for me sometimes. That way they will catch some things that I miss. I suppose I should also spend more time proofreading and spend more time actually writing. By spacing things out, I think I can prevent a lot of the boredom that I have become victim to, and hopefully I can improve the way that I write.

Side note: I wasn't so into this blog...only 402 words.

"I am Switzerland." (Cuatro)

How exactly does one locate an intelligent person? Is it that kid in the back who wears the dorky glasses and never wears a shirt without a pocket protector? On the surface, it may appear so. But to truly understand how to locate an intelligent person, perhaps it would be judicious to define intelligence.

My favorite definition for intelligence is: the capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity; aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc. That's a complicated definition, you might tell me, and, in some respects, you might be right. Many might say that an intelligent person is someone who knows a lot of facts. Maybe an intelligent person uses a lot of big words or maybe an intelligent person does vector calculus just for fun (I'll give you a cookie if you get that reference). Indeed, one definition of intelligent is: having understanding or knowledge. But to me, intelligence is a bit more than just facts.

To me, an intelligent person may not know a lot of pieces of random trivia, although many intelligent people may. A truly intelligent person might not be able to do long division in his head or use big words solely for the purpose of confusing his or her audience. An intelligent person is someone who has the ability to learn quickly. An intelligent person has a mind that is capable of quick decisions, especially outside of the classroom. Education and intelligence are not the same thing. An educated person might be able to know things in theory, but a truly intelligent person can put theories into practice. It's not about being able to memorize things. It's also about being able to recieve input in the form of facts and use their own reasoning to output something new. Just memorizing things is not thinking, it's regurgitating knowledge.

You can't be intelligent without thinking.