IB Moving On

Thou reader,

It was something I'd do again.  I've been asked numerous times if I like IB.  "Like" is a bit of a strong word, but I think the best answer is that I would do it again.  As my senior year comes to a close, and I have to decide what the heck fire I am going to do next, I have found myself reminiscing quite a bit, so I am going to get a bit nostalgic in this post.

Before high school, I was more reserved and afraid to jump out of my comfort zone.  I was terrified of being judged, and I worried way too much of what people might think of me.  Freshman and sophomore year was kind of a transitional period for me, but junior year, when I reluctantly began my sleep-deprived journey as an IBer, was when I found my niche.  

My experience in IB has been very telling.  I have made friends with amazing people I otherwise would not have had the opportunity to get to know.  I also discovered who my true friends really are.  They are the people who continue to ask you to hang out even after you've turned them down countless times to do homework.  They are the people who are excited for your success and the ones who check up on you when you may or may not be having a nervous breakdown.  

It provided me with a lot of new experiences and tested my limits.  I do not think that I would have been inducted into Service Club had I not been in IB, and that was the greatest honor I have received.  Now, before any AP kids have a hissy fit and say that IB is not an extracurricular, I must make it clear that that is not my point.  IB surrounded me with people who are involved and actually enjoy being involved at Millbrook, and they encouraged me to do the same.  We slightly resemble a cult, but it's fine.  It's a small community of people who are willing to help one another and do not think that it's cool to not support your school.  I find that very admirable.

I now want to shift the focus from "It was" and "I was" to "I will" and "I am".  Because IB was such a demanding experience, I am a person who has the confidence to test my limits and have now set very high standards for myself.  I am now a person who can speak confidently in front of people and is not afraid to make a fool out of myself or speak my mind.  Maybe that just comes with growing up, but I think it is also a part of being in a program that provides new experiences.  Now, I do not agree with all things IB, but I do think that the overall experience has been beneficial.

I am a person who has realized that school is not the most important thing.  I will not let homework control my life, and I will watch The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and not feel guilty about it.  I do not think that it is okay to compromise friendships and personal well-being for an A.  I am a person who spends all Sunday watching football, no excuse, and that is never going to change.  I will always incorporate my passions into my life.

Now, as I begin to embark on the next stage of my life, I will do so with confidence, an open-mind, and, of course, a touch of style. I, like Tom Brady, look forward to defying odds. It was something I would do again.  I am glad that I am not one of those people who will look back on her high school experience with distaste.  I hope you all can say the same!

Peace n violence,

Kiley Burns, Future NFL Commissioner :)

The Whitman Diaries

Observation #1: Mr. Whitman did not have OCD.

Amidst the scratches and the stamps, Walt Whitman reveals his train of thought and his beliefs.  I first just scanned all of the pages to get an idea of what his notebook entailed.  Nothing really stood out to me until I got to the drawings.  On the last page, there is an illustration of a skeleton with a sword going through its heart shaped body.  It is a stark contrast to his other drawings of the profiles of a man with a beard.  All of the drawings show the left side of the man's face.  I find this fascinating- maybe Whitman was just trying to fine-tune an image in his head on paper, maybe he thinks that the right side of the face is the most telling, or maybe because he was before his time and knew that the left side of the face is more prone to skin cancer.  In all of the drawings of this man, the eyes are looking down as if ashamed or contemplating.

I then examined his writings further.  I discovered that Whitman contemplated big ideas and principles.  I saw the repetition of the word "liberty", which I think is reflective of the time during which Whitman wrote, the Civil War.  One line reads: "Ship of Liberty, blow mad winds!"  and another references lessons for a president elect.  He also repeats ideas surrounding religion, love, ocean, and crashes.  I think that this shows that Whitman explored religion and religious motives. Whitman's pairing of ocean imagery with religion shows that he welcomes the ebbs and flows of life and values his spirituality.

The president elect in Whitman's dialogue is Lincoln.  The thing I found the most fascinating was that his references to religion in his notes may have served as an allegory of the Civil War.  He wrote about a Civil War deity because rebellion and resistance are built into his idea of the godhead.  I noticed that his spelling of "liberty" looked a bit off, but I couldn't think of what else he would be writing.  After reading the notes, I realized that he was not writing "liberty" but the Spanish spelling of "libertad".  It's so fascinating to me that using the spelling of another language can have such a deeper and more expansive meaning.  He wanted to suggest that liberty extends beyond the borders of our nation and that he connected the Union with democratic and nationalist movements throughout the world.  The ship and ocean references reflect both a national, the future of liberty, and a personal, the diminishing value of authors, struggle.  The obscure drawing on the last page is yet another reference to American during the Civil War, poised between day and night, life and death.  These notes reveal that Whitman was a politically-aware man who believed that the success of liberty in the United States would affect the success of liberty globally.  His writings reflected the time in which he lived and wrote and foreshadowed what was to come for the country.