Tiny Thoughts With Tiffany

Imagination Station:


Every Tuesday, Tiffany, the most popular girl at her school, shares her thoughts of the day.  Some are funny, others serious, but they are always poignant and deep. 


So, like hey everyone.  It's so nice out today, so my friend Amber and me totally decided to skip school and get our tan on, because boy's like tanned girls and I'm not gonna go fake bake so I can look like an orange.  Like how many guys do you see ask oranges to prom?  Like no one, well, except for that band geek, but still, like no one important or popular or hot would.

Anyway, so we were sitting by some random person's pool (we totally hopped their fence, so like don't tell anyone, 'cause I could get like jailed) and I just randomly think this random thing.

"Hey Amber, why is Greenland called Greenland?"

This is Greenland on a map.  I'm just kind of confused.
Are there two Denmarks?  

So then she was all like, "I don't know Tiffany.  It's green there right?"

Then I was like, "But it's cold and icy.  Why don't they call it Iceland?"

And then she was like, "But there already is a country called Iceland."

I totally did not know this because I didn't pay attention in geology class, and my parents never bought me a map.   Plus, this is the United States and we're United Statespeople, and we don't give a WTF about other places because they're not as awesome.

Then I was like, "OMG, like why couldn't they call it Iceland 2 or Iceland: The Sequel?"

And she was all like, "Great idea Tiffany.  Maybe we could contact the Nations United and get the name changed?"

And I was then all like, "Totally."

So, that's my random thought for the day.  Love you all, and by all, I mean the popular pretty people.

The Perfect Scholarship Candidate

Imagination Station:


Play this while reading.  It will enhance the gravity and depth of what you are about to read.  

Write about a challenge you had to overcome and how it changed you as a person:

I've had many challenges in my life.  It all started when I was a little boy growing up in a gang ridden suburban town.  My daddy smoked crack and my mom beat me when she came home from her job of smuggling chinchillas, so at the age of 5 I decided it was time to run away from that atmosphere of stifling aggression and addiction.  I ran away to the city, where I lived in the system of sewers beneath the concrete and was raised by a family of sewer gators, kind of like that boy who was raised by a family of wolves.

I stayed there until I was 10.  At that point I decided it was time to return to the surface and try to seek an education in order to better myself.  I lived on the streets homeless for a long time.  I chose a spot behind the local public library, where I would fish books out of the dumpster in order to self-educate myself.  It was when I came across these books that I realized that biomedical engineering and medicine was my true calling in life.  So I begin to try to find a cure for cancer in order to cure my ailing gator father.  He's been sick for a long time, but I believe I'm making good progress.

On the streets, I also realized that I need to give back to the community.  I began going around the city, collecting bricks and wood thrown in the trash.  I found a spot by a river where I decided to build a school for impoverished homeless children just like myself.  It took me years to build that school with my bare hands, but I'm proud to say that I have succeeded in building it.

I recently got accepted to Harvard, Yale, and other illustrious over-priced schools, but I need help with some of the financing.  That's where this scholarship can help me.

All the challenges in life have made me who I am.  I am strong, confident, and determined.  I know that I must earn everything in life, that nothing is ever truly free.  My childhood paid the price, but my adulthood will reap the rewards, because I am a better person now and I can help others.

Thank you.

AP Lit Essay

Imagination Station:


Sorry I haven't written in awhile guys.  I've been busy with my AP exams.  I learned this lovely little fact about AP essays.  You can write whatever you want and if you cross it out, it won't be graded... he he he...  And no, this was not my real essay. 

2011 AP® ENGLISH LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION FREE-RESPONSE QUESTIONS

© 2011 The College Board.

Visit the College Board on the Web: www.collegeboard.org.

GO ON TO THE NEXT PAGE.

-2-

ENGLISH LITERATURE AND COMPOSITION

SECTION II

Total time—2 hours

Question 1

(Suggested time—40 minutes. This question counts as one-third of the total essay section score.)

The following poem is by the contemporary poet Li-Young Lee. Read the poem carefully. Then write a well developed 

essay in which you analyze how the poet conveys the complex relationship of the father and the son 

through the use of literary devices such as point of view and structure.

A Story

Sad is the man who is asked for a story

and can’t come up with one.

His five-year-old son waits in his lap.

Not the same story, Baba. A new one.

The man rubs his chin, scratches his ear.

In a room full of books in a world

of stories, he can recall

not one, and soon, he thinks, the boy

will give up on his father.

Already the man lives far ahead, he sees

the day this boy will go. Don’t go!

Hear the alligator story! The angel story once more!

You love the spider story. You laugh at the spider.

Let me tell it!

But the boy is packing his shirts,

he is looking for his keys. Are you a god,

the man screams, that I sit mute before you?

Am I a god that I should never disappoint?

But the boy is here. Please, Baba, a story?

It is an emotional rather than logical equation,

an earthly rather than heavenly one,

which posits that a boy’s supplications

and a father’s love add up to silence.

Here's the brilliant, well-crafted essay about the poem: 

Li-Young Lee's poem "A Story" conveys the complexity of the father-son relationship through the shifting tone and shifting points of view, making the poem more complex, thus mirroring the complexity of the relationship discussed.

You have lovely hair.  It brings out the color in your eyes.   Lee first uses shifting point of view in order to mimic the complexity of the father-son relationship.  The unitalicized portion of the poem is in third person, while the italicized portion is in first person.  However, the narrator in the italicized portions of the poem shift as well, further adding to a complexity.  You know what's complex, my relationship with Joe.  That's some complicated ass shit man.   In the second and final stanza, the narrator is the son as a young boy.  He asks "Baba" for another story, begs him, "Please, Baba, another story?" I wonder if he likes me.  No, not Joe.  Bob.  It's complicated.     In the fourth and fifth stanza, the narrator is the father.  He begs his son, "Don't go!" and offers to tell him stories from the boy's childhood that he used to love.  I personally like the story about Cinderella.  You know, the typical rags to riches story, and she meets a handsome prince.  I want to meet a prince.  I'm so lonely.  Match.com didn't work for me.  Guaranteed my ass.   

Lee also uses shifting tones to further the complexity of the poem and illustrate the complexity in the relationship between father and son.  I'm a little teapot. The first stanza is sad.  Short and stout.  The second is loving, with a cute, little kid asking his Baba to tell "not the same story," but "a new one."  The fourth stanza is pleading and anxious, with a father, who feels abandoned, asking his son to not go, begging him to "let me tell it." I'm tired.  And thirsty.  Is this almost over?  Okay buddy or lady, let me just level with you.  I put about 0.000000006 effort into this class, so you're lucky that I even know what a stanza is. So, do you think you could just give me an 8 for being honest?  Please?  I will mail you cookies. Or, you know what, here's a quarter.  I hope it's still in there when you get it.  They won't let me have access to tape. 

Alright, the truth is I really hope you give me a nine.  I'm an orphan and my mother and father take turns beating me.  Mom on even days and dad on odd days.  Dad is a blind gambler and Mom is a fat prostitute.  So they don't bring in any money or food.  I haven't eaten in months.  And I need this college credit because I won't be able to afford the class... because my family can't get money.  So... yeah... please give me a good grade.  

Enjoy the pretty picture I drew for you. 

Puppy face.  Don't fight it.