Seniors Journal #2: Your Good Place

POST BEFORE WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 12

I'm not always up to date on the most novel vernacular, teen or otherwise. By the time I start using some "new" expression, it's bottomed out to the level of drab cliche. So if you get a "you go, girl" or an "atta boy" from me, try not to gawk in amazement at me as if I'm some ancient mariner.

Within the last year, people my age and in my small circle of very cool friends have begun to use the phrase "in a good place," as in "his boss gave him a raise today, so he's in a good place" or he was able to watch football all Sunday afternoon, so he was "in his good place." Getting a raise might put you in a "figurative good place," but watching football all Sunday afternoon and evening on your couch in your Mancave is a "real good place."

Which leads me to this blog's question: Where's your "good place?"

You SHOULD answer VERY literally and specifically, sparing no expense of travel. The place must exist.

Maybe take me to some sunny exotic island in the Bahamas, send me schussing down the Rockies, or lead me to traverse your favorite hiking spot on the Appalachian Trail.

Or perhaps you're the more "stay at home" type, who like Henry David Thoreau, could make a full day out of bird watching, sitting in his cabin doorway. Then stay at home. Describe what it's like to be playing the guitar, getting big in the weight room, or just "chewing the fat" with your friends. Take me on an easy five mile jog in White Clay Creek Park with your Ipod at full blast and with your eyes (and other senses) wide open.

This journal will be somewhat similar to your next creative writing assignment. If you like, you can use this assignment to stretch your writing muscles before running the real race.

However, one requirement of your post at Schoolsville is that your "good place" MUST be a "good place." Please, for this assignment I want no glimpses into any personal mansions of doom and gloom. As I might have said once or twice in the 70s, "Don't be such a downer, man."

For Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption, listening to the music of the "two Italian ladies" took his soul to heights that not even two weeks of prison lockup could destroy.

Can our "good places" do the same?

Yellow Class: Vocab Unit 6 due Thursday

Post ten (10) sentences using your vocabulary words correctly, giving clues to the meanings of the words within your sentence.

SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS

Students with last names of Blackwell through Hoffman should use vocab words 1-10; Kasehagen through White should use words 11-20.

Blue Class Vocab: Unit 6 due Thursday

Post ten (10) sentences using your vocabulary words correctly, giving clues to the meanings of the words within your sentence.

SPECIAL DIRECTIONS:

Baker through Irons, write sentences using words 1-10.

Kacmarcik through Williams, write sentences using words 11-20.

Seniors journal #1: Your Bucket List (post before Friday, Dec. 7)

Consider this first journal a curious mixture of themes presented in the somber short story, The Portable Phonograph, and a movie called The Bucket List, a 2009 film in which two older men make a list of things they want to do before they die or "kick the bucket."

In keeping with the themes of both works, here's your exercise:

Before you meet your maker, you will be granted all of these last wishes.
Make your choices, and briefly explain in a sentence or two.

Post before class on Friday, December 7.

1. final thing to read (OK, so even if you don't like to read, this is your final reading of anything, so with that in mind, seriously consider your decision)
2. final song that you'd like to hear
3. movie or tv show that you'll watch one last time
4. final website you'll visit (www.schoolsville.blogspot.com, of course)
5. final meal
6. place or event you'd like to visit or attend
7. you get instant knowledge on any one of life's great serious mysteries
8. you get instant knowledge on any one of life's great head-scratchers (make this humorous, like why do people think The Office is funny?)
9. other than any of the above, one last activity you'd like to do
10. now this isn't a wish, but tell me a prized possession that you would literally guard with your life