Reflection

I was terrified when I entered high school, like most poor freshmen.  I came from a tiny bilingual, Montessori charter school with a graduating class of 18, so coming to Millbrook was a complete culture shock.  I  was also terrified when I entered IB, like most of my peers.  I expected a “rigorous, demanding program” (Lord Baron) that would make me cry at least one night a week.  Well, it turns out one of those things were true, and it was not crying once a week. (Although, I do admit that I have shed many, many tears over IB coursework, just not at the frequency that I expected.  Sorry for the cliche Mrs. G, but I can attest to the legitimacy of the phrase “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”)  Looking back on all of the late nights, difficult tests, terrifying orals, never-ending Extended Essay, and uncountable Internal Assessments, I realize that I never regretted doing IB.  I knew when I signed up that it was going to be very difficult.  Honestly, that is why I did it.  I wanted to take on the challenge of the hardest program offered at Millbrook just to see if I could do it (no matter what Nina Wilder says, I still don’t believe that AP is harder than IB).  And sure, I have lost a lot of sleep and possibly some of my sanity (jk...maybe) along the way, but I value the knowledge that I gained in this program more than I regret those rough times.  I now know what chemiosmosis is, what rumbo means, how to write an essay in 2 hours (but I still struggle to not go over that time limit), what Stalin’s Five Year Plans were, and that sense perception is a WoK.  The knowledge that I have gained about myself is equally valuable to the academic knowledge that I acquired in IB.  I have learned that I can deal with a lot more than what I thought I could handle when I began IB.  I have learned how to do work in a short amount of time and maintain its quality.  I have learned how to get out of my introverted shell and become close with my IB classmates.  I will miss my caring teachers and hilarious peers, but I am grateful for the time that we have had together.

Walt Whitman's Notebook Analysis

Walt Whitman’s notebook reveals much about the poet’s style and private thoughts.  The first page shows the names and addresses of five people.  The first two are undecipherable, but the others are: “Charles Hine,” “Mrs. Price,” and “Sloan.”  I presume that these people are recent acquaintances of Whitman, especially since he uses the formal “Mrs.” when he writes Price’s name.  One of the people mentioned in this list is his tailor, showing that Whitman’s notebook was not solely used for poetry, but also for important pieces of information like the addresses of people that Whitman met and interacted with.  The second page introduces an idea that Whitman is developing, and at the very top Whitman has labeled his rough planning “Brochure.”  In this page, Whitman writes: “Two characters as of a Dialogue between A. Lincoln and W Wh---n.”  Whitman describes that this dialogue could be like a dream, showing Whitman’s imagination as he begins to envision having a conversation with Abraham Lincoln.  The poet comes up with a better name for his imaginary conversation in which “A. Lincoln” is replaced by “President-elect.”  This distinction conveys the importance of every single word to Whitman’s work.  Perhaps he chose “President-elect” because he wanted to emphasize the importance of Abraham Lincoln within this imaginary dialogue, instead of referring to him by his name like a common citizen.  

One of the most interesting parts of Whitman’s notebook is his use of small question marks above some of his words and phrases.  These small notations demonstrate the parts in his notebook that Whitman wanted to review again to perfect.  The question marks convey the poet’s attention to detail.  Whitman made sure to remind himself to review every word or phrase that he was indecisive about, ensuring that his final product was exactly what he envisioned.  Another fascinating part of the poet’s notebook is his numerous strikethroughs and carrot symbols.  These show the development of Whitman’s thought process in every line.  For example, on the third page of his notebook, he crosses out the dot on a semicolon to make it a comma.  In the same line, he adds the words “antique” and “religious-.”  After all of these revisions, the first line reads: “Two antique records there are, two religious-platforms.”  His additions convey Whitman’s development from a vague, abstract first line of a poem to one containing diction like “religious” that affect the poem as a whole.  The rest of the poem on page three contain diction charged with religious denotations and connotations, such as “Jew,” “Christ,” “philosophy,” “purity,” and “conscience.”  With this vocabulary, Whitman seems to be exploring religion and its meaning.  The most significant quote in the notebook is in this same poem: “There is love, there is drenched purity . . . there, subtle, is the unseen Soul, before which all the goods and greatnesses.”  Whitman explores some of the age-old questions of humanity in this beautiful line, combining his thoughts on religion with his belief in an invisible soul.

In his notebook, Whitman also shows the development of a conceit with the ship Libertad.  It is strange that Whitman uses the Spanish word for liberty instead of the English one, but it has been speculated that perhaps Whitman wanted to convey that freedom should not be limited by borders of nationality.  The ship of Libertad represents freedom as well as the United States, and at the end of the poem Whitman calls it many other names: “Ship of the World - Ship of Humanity - Ship of the ages.”  These names demonstrate Whitman’s belief that the outcome of the Civil War could determine the world’s future.  He questions the hardiness of the United States and freedom, and asks in second person how much the ship can stand.  These questions show the fear that Whitman has for the future of liberty throughout the world, as well as his happiness that people are fighting for their own freedom in his own nation and in others.  The development of this conceit conveys the extent to which Whitman was affected by the context of his world--the Union in the Civil War, the struggles of Latin American countries to gain independence, and other fights for liberty and democracy worldwide.  In this fragmented poem, Whitman also seems to be speaking of Lincoln, who is trying to lead his country through hardships like the ship Libertad faces.  He also writes “black clouds of death,” which demonstrate the poet’s fear that the United States will pay the price of many lives while fighting for freedom in the Civil War.

Whitman occasionally passed around his notebook in bars, and people drew profiles of the poet that are always serious and get progressively darker as the notebook is filled.  One portrait shows Whitman reaching for something not shown in the drawing, in a way that suggests that Whitman longs for something unattainable.  I thought that perhaps his dark shading conveys his moods, which also become more negative and sad as time goes on.   However, scholars believe that his friends simply enjoyed drawing Whitman with a red nose from drinking, or with a large, dark, and flamboyant hat to show Whitman’s mysteriousness.  The title of a newspaper, The Boheamian, and a strange harp-like instrument were also drawn.  Scholars believe that the newspaper title was an idea for the design for a local newspaper, and the harp seems fitting in Whitman’s notebook since it is the symbol of poetry. The last image seems to be quite negative, showing a skeleton with a heart-shaped body floating above the water with the sun rising or setting in the background.  The skeleton wears a hat and has been stabbed with a sword, its arms are raised in a shrug-like fashion.  It has been speculated that this image is an allegory for the United States during the Civil War, in a flux between life and death.  This image comes directly after a snippet of a possible poem that Whitman was brainstorming, and one of the lines of this poem was “The last war.”  Perhaps the skeleton-creature is connected to Whitman’s view of the Civil War, which many thought of as a “second American revolution.”