Train of Thought

Finding your Outlet School and life outside of it can be stressful, so finding your outlet early on can help you manage the struggles to come. After 16 years of being the skinniest kid at school and looking like a 2x4, I started dedicating myself to the gym. As I became more comfortable lifting, the gym became like therapy; I could drop all my worries at the door and throw around some heavy weights to the taps and drumming of my rap playlist. Working out helped me through the horror that is junior year, and over time built up my confidence. Just because the gym became my outlet doesn't mean it has to be shared by everyone; anything ranging from art to sports to tinkering is just as great. Aside from relieving stress, outlets can help you find a long term passion, or in my case, become my passion. I look forward to my daily workouts and spend hours in the gym (as Josiah clearly knows after camping me out for water wars) getting rid of all my stress, but also working to improve mysel...

   DISCLAIMER: BLOG CONTENT 100% SATIRICAL COMMENTARY AND DEFINITELY NOT SERIOUS      The past year and the last couple months especially, I've struggled to hold a pencil or type. Even as I write this, I can feel my fingers become heavy as my condition sets in: Senioritis. With grades not relevant anymore, it can be so easy to disregard classwork in favor of other distractions, and the pull becomes stronger the closer we get to the end of the year. For most of us, our grades are as good as locked in and we won't be taking the final, so after 12 years of studying it can be so hard to keep pushing when it doesn't matter anymore. Every day feels defined by 11:59, with work being finished in record times as the hour approaches. To simulate the experience of senioritis (as I would absolutely never actually do anything remotely like it) I chose to wait until the night before the blog is due to get to writing.  10:20 - "Free choice blog? I wonder what I'll write ...

 When my parents named me, the main thing they thought about is that they wanted it to be both German and English to reflect my heritage. With everyone having a different idea of how to pronounce it, Stefan sounds foreign even to my own ears; sometimes it's Stef-ON, other times Stephen, with the rare Steven thrown in. Most often my name reminds people of twilight or an exotic real estate agent, but to me Stefan most often means school. Stefan means studying hard, getting called on, taking tests - all things intellectual. To me, Lemke references the athlete. Lemke is someone calling me over in the gym, or when I used to get in the starting block at a track meet. Plastered on the back of my jersey or hoodie, Lemke is a more comfortable name in the outside world, with Stefan reserved for school and my parents calling me down to dinner. My name sounds more familiar to me in German, as especially recently that's all I've been hearing. Like my name itself, my connotation of it is...

After the first day of watching Godot, I decided to do a little more digging in an attempt to find meaning. What I found was not deeper understanding, but rather disappointment at the various missed opportunities for genuine commentary. In an interview, Samuel Beckett himself states that Godot is not meant to be a play on words to represent God, despite the various pronunciations Pozzo stabs at all sounding as such. Theatre of the Absurd plays on religious commentary to highlight absurdism of life, yet Waiting for Godot somehow lacks. Godot reminds me of a bad joke where no one laughs, and the joke teller digs themselves a deeper and deeper hole by explaining it's not meant to be funny. Supporters of the play explain how it's not meant to be enjoyed, but when so many of the opportunities to make a point are missed, I find it hard to even appreciate the attempts. Everything is interconnected, such as discussions of hanging leading to Pozzo appearing with Lucky on a noose. Simila...

    Every time I open a comment section on social media, I see at least one saying that really pushes my buttons. Whether it be "No ❤️", or "Um child anyways", the overused sayings just get funnier and funnier every time I read them. Using one of these or any of the other sayings popular on TikTok ruins a conversation, just how having a wet sock ruins the rest of your day. Almost never do they add anything to a conversation (unless said conversation is discussing how annoying the sayings are), and they only serve to get on my nerves. The sayings often serve as a weak excuse of a comeback, and ruin any sort of friendly roasts. The worst part of these sayings? They absolutely refuse to die. Every time it seems as if they fade away, a new surge of No❤️ begins bringing with it a resurgence of my annoyance towards it.  After looking at Google Trends for activity in the sayings, I came to the unfortunate conclusion that these sad excuses for comebacks are in no risk of dy...

After knowledge extinguished the last of the beautiful fires our worship had failed to prolong, we walked back home through pedestrian daylight, to a residence   humbler than the one left behind. A door without mystery, a room without theme . For the hour that we spend complacent at the window overlooking the garden,   we observe an arrangement in rust and gray-green, a vagueness at the center whose slow, persistent movements some sentence might explain if we had time   or strength for sentences. To admit that what falls falls solitarily, lost in the permanent dusk of the particular. That the mind that fear and disenchantment fatten   comes to boss the world around it, morbid as the damp- fingered guest who rearranges the cheeses the minute the host turns to fix her a cocktail . A disease of the will, the way   false birch branches arch and interlace from which hands dangle last leaf-parchments and a very large array of primitive bird-shapes. Their pasted feat...

 A word that I find beautiful is symphony. Symphony by itself rolls of the tongue like silk, and ironically, the sound is  the meaning. Symphony can be used to describe an orchestra or a compositional work, and within the word hide soaring melodies and trembling lows. As a little kid, I would often fall asleep to the sounds of my mom practicing for her next concert as a professional musician. The notes she played would work their way up the stairs and into my room, where they filled me with serenity and peace. Now as an adult (technically), the word symphony brings me back to the magic and wonder only a child's eye can see, and I get part of the same serenity I fell asleep to oh so many times growing up. Now as a musician myself, symphony also reminds me of the nerves that always return before a big solo, the anticipation of wanting to deliver the same quality I listened to as a kid. I find moist an ugly word, as it somehow reminds me of a dark, dank basement. Whereas symphony...

      In my book club book, Demian, the main character is influenced by multiple parties. The most obvious mentor shares the name of the book, and is shrouded in mystery. A different character, Franz Kromer, could also be seen as a mentor, however Kromer drags him in a negative direction. This led to me realizing that a mentor isn't always necessarily a good influence, and the importance in being able to distinguish the two. In the book, Kromer is an obvious negative influence, and is even associated with the "forbidden" realm rather than the bright and innocent one Sinclair was raised in. In the real world however, the influence people have on us isn't always as black and white. In our desire to fit in, we often associate with people who don't have our best interest in mind, and we become distracted from our path to success. Like Sinclair who just wanted to show off to the other boys, trying to fit the mold at all costs can cause consequences. At the same time, f...

 One of my favorite things with the first semester was the free reading time. I don't typically read much during my regular life, so having a time carved out just for reading let me experience books I otherwise wouldn't have. In general, when we read books in class we dissect them to their smallest pieces, which somewhat takes away from the overall enjoyment of the book. I found the class workload extremely manageable, even with my other APs. I found blogging to be overall enjoyable, and really liked the more freeform style they adopted towards the end of the semester. I personally really like the Harkness discussions and found them to be some of the most enjoyable class periods. Hearing other peoples ideas and bringing new thoughts and life into a story gave me a new appreciation for whatever piece we read. I think the grading system motivated me to try and find original thought rather than just echo the ideas of others. With online learning it can sometimes be hard to stay mo...

Like clockwork, when the holiday spirits begin to glow my dad beings to tell of Christmas in Germany and what it's like. He tells of the magical Christmas markets with the sweet smells wafting over stands to tickle your nose, of the presents delicately unwrapped on Christmas Eve, and of the precarious tradition of real candles on the tree. With his stories, my dad passes on a little piece of our cultural heritage as German Americans, retelling those memories we've never had the chance to experience. While we've been to Germany many times to visit family and explore other European countries in the summer, we miss out on much of shapes the culture. As the much-awaited day slowly creeps closer on the calendar, CDs filled with German Christmas carols spin along, with merry children's voices singing "Oh Tannenbaum" -  "Oh Christmas Tree". Storytelling is a way to not only learn but also to bond, growing closer to the storyteller and the story alike. Germa...

    ` When playing games with a couple of my friends, I found myself judging their skill at the game. "Wow, they're so bad" I thought to myself. At the time, we were playing as a group, and began to lose the game we were playing. I have a pretty competitive mindset, so when the tides turned against us I began to analyze what the possible culprit of the loss could be. Rather than focusing on what I could do to improve, I blamed my teammates, a common pitfall in all group sports or activities. We as people are quick to push the blame away from ourselves, even if it clearly could've been our own fault. We make judgements on a day to day basis, be it in a game or on the road, but regardless of the medium, excuses as to why we aren't to blame always exist. "Well, he should've seen me coming!" could be a common excuse if you cut someone off on the road. Making judgements of others doesn't diminish who we are as people, but it is important to focus intr...

     "How to Be Alone" covers various pockets of America and their individual stories of quarantine solidarity. The pandemic hit everyone in vastly different ways, but ironically, that's what unites us; all our lives were shaken to their core. Communities have been forced to stay secluded, and the isolation slowly takes it toll on mental health. Like an astronaut, we must stay focused on the mission and keep ourselves busy to force away the boredom and loneliness slowly creeping in. Not everyone has a relationship or friends to connect to, and their human interactions are next to none. My own quarantine experience has been a confusing period of growth. Like everyone else, it began by coming to terms with everything I would no longer be able to do, from going to the gym on a daily basis, hanging out with friends, or going out to eat. My friends and I stayed connected through the voice calls we had nearly every night; most nights we would play games and keep ourselves busy,...

  Physics C      ~Mr. Glynn  The image above is familiar to us all; to some, it may even cause anxiety. To me, this image represents a distinct shift deeper than simply switching to virtual. The way we used to remember school, through memories at the lunch table with friends or an especially hard test, has vanished; the only remaining catalogue of the struggle we underwent tucked away in folders. Each folder represents a new week of procrastination, stress, and homework, yet it all seems so bland and insignificant. Weeks all melt into each other like a movie on fast forward when we can't find the remote, whizzing by faster than we can follow. There are no memorable events separating the weeks, just an ever increasing number until we reach our uncertain graduation. Although we have more free time than we'll probably ever have again, everything feels like a chore, with the same routine being repeated day after day. Returning to school feels like entering a post ap...

 The world is ruled by an invisible dictator. He controls what we see, hear, and feel, as well as basic human interaction. The craziest thing? People willingly choose to be controlled, submitting themselves to an unseen ruler known as the internet. As the world is sucked deeper into the hole of technology, it can sometimes take a wake-up call to really see what's happening. Banksy's piece titled "Mobile Lovers" shows what happens when you zoom out and look at the bigger picture. At face value, we see two lovers, but with a little more context, we realize their true infatuation lies with their phones. The irony with this piece lies in the fact that the common passer-by would be looking down at their phones, and therefore completely miss as well as play into the message Banksy delivers. Banksy shows the weakening relevance of face-to-face human connection, being taken over by a digital world. Some people no longer feel comfortable in the presence of others, and use thei...

 As the global pandemic continues, schools were forced to discover a new method of teaching: zoom. This development has strangely led to a new evolutionary line of students, dubbed by scientists studenta procrastinatis . The diagram below shows a mock-up of the new elusive species in it's natural habitat. As seen in the diagram, studenta procrastinatis has developed an aversion towards pants, and roams from class to class in its pajamas. Taking a closer look at the laptop, a minimum of four tabs occupy the space at all times, with an average of 6-8 according to recent studies. Studenta procrastinatis  dwells on the bottom of the food chain with many predators, one of which named the breakout room. In the scenario that studenta procrastinatis encounters this terror, it engages its natural defense mechanism: the disable video button. Hiding behind the black screen until the coast is clear,  studenta procrastinatis manages to escape group discussions 96.8% of the time. Anoth...

     Oedipus and Brave New World portray different philosophies regarding the strengths and drawbacks of catharsis. The strain of our day to day lives can frequently become exhausting, and frustrations begin to build into anger. This anger is frequently portrayed by a pressure cooker, with steam building up inside,  similar to  how anger "boils" up inside of people. As the pressure reaches a critical maximum, we must either vent our anger, or "explode", often harming those around us.        Though catharsis as a therapeutic technique was first described by a colleague of Sigmund Freud, the technique used by Sophocles was very similar. By overwhelming his audience with tragedy and  negative events, the audience is purged of all emotion and left feeling numb.  Just as the pressure cooker is about to explode open, Sophocles tears off the lid, allowing the emotions of the audience to flow freely like the steam trapped in the cooker...

      As I read Oedipus, the idea of destiny as unchangeable jumps out at me. No matter what actions are taken, the prophecy laid out for him reigns true. After the news that the boy would kill Laius, the messenger sends him far far away rather than killing the young boy, attempting to give him a second chance at life. Despite this effort, both aspects of the prophecy occur; first Oedipus kills his true father, and then he realizes that he has been sleeping with his mother. Although our own lives (hopefully) aren't nearly as dramatic, I began to wonder if we truly control the outcome of our story. Sure we make our own choices, but are these choices directed by some outside force? Is Oedipus really a bad person who killed his father, or is he simply a victim of fate? For the sake of Oedipus, I believe his narrative is predetermined, as all actions taken to try and divert fate fail. In my own life however, I think I have my own personal narrative, determined by how I choose...

    What truly defines humanity? Reading Brave New World by Aldous Huxley has made me think about the world I interact with every day, such as "what seems normal now but will seem strange in the future"? Huxley proposes an answer to one of my questions, illustrating how even a normal concept of home and family is taboo. The word "mother" seems vulgar, but talk of reproductive processes is normal. Although it was written in 1932, many of the concepts don't seem all that outlandish. We have already been genetically engineering plants and animals for decades, and what if the focus shifts towards humans? Can humanity still be defined biologically when science smears its finger through the line further and further? Regardless of what constitutes as a biological male or female, we are all defined by the interactions we have. What truly defines humanity when science can't is the common struggle we all endure, trying to progress in a society with hurdles we construc...