Tests

Students know all too well that there is much work to be done when they come to school. Nonetheless, there are a few great terrors that our teachers have up their sleeves and when they unleash them we students cringe in fear of the pressure and judgment behind them. The focus of today’s blog is one of those classroom terrors, the impending tests.

In my experience, when my friends and I are assigned a test, the air changes. From then on, until the hour after the test is over, there is great pressure in everything you do, every hour you spend and every break you take. As I study and as I procrastinate, I feel like I’m not doing enough because a test is more than just a test, it is judgment. Judgment in the form of a letter grade A, B, C, D, or F which brands you, has the potential to taint your class grade, and ultimately your life options, irrevocably. It is for this reason that many students view tests in a negative light and consider them to be the low point of a week if one is assigned.

I was about fourteen when I looked beyond my own fear of tests and looked at them from another perspective.

At its heart, I think that the concept of tests is a very respectable one. If we really care about our abilities or knowledge, than it is important to make sure that we fully understand it. A test provides a way of doing that, as well as setting a minimum bar of knowledge that lets us know what we should be capable of doing. Tests test us so that we can overcome them and improve.

There is a definitive satisfaction to taking a test knowing that you have the knowledge and ability to smash it and proceed forward. If you are not as knowledgeable or able to handle an impending test, then it is a challenge, an obstacle for you to match your wits against. You are pushed to improve yourself, to be all you can be, and if you succeed in overcoming the test then you can rest easy knowing you are better and stronger than you once were.

Even if you fail, a test is valuable because it shows where you are lacking. Since I began to think of tests in this light, whenever I failed a test I make a point of talking to my teacher about the questions I missed. I may have not cared about the information before a test but after I fail one, the information I didn’t know becomes highlighted for me and as I talk to my teacher about the answers I come to understand the information for myself. I may have failed the test, but I grew from it in the end.

Between us students, our teachers, and the society we live in that pushes us to succeed, I think we have lost sight of what I consider to be the true purpose of tests. I think that tests were originally meant to serve the purposes mentioned above but as time has passed, we humans have evolved the wrong perspective on tests in thinking that they judge our worth in society and that we can be labeled with letters.

I recently had a talk with a teacher about a test I failed and I mentioned to her how frustrating it is that we are judged by our grades. She disagreed and told me that grades don’t count for everything. Perhaps she has the right perspective but knowing how we students are pressured to do perfectly by our families, teachers, and society itself, I think somewhere in that quagmire the problem of judging people with labeling persists.

The pressure is good because we wouldn’t be driven to be better for ourselves if there was no stress. It is just sad how the pressure makes us forget that the hurdles and tests that are put in our way push us forward. We only think about how they hurt us and that takes away from pushing ourselves to be all we can be.

That said, I would like to look past my own stress and frustrations and thank the concept of tests for what they do for us humans and what they do for me. If I was not pushed to meet new standards of ability, I would not be the man I am today.

Swords, Media, and Fantasy

One of the items that has fascinated me the most throughout my life would have to be a sword. I have neither a favorite brand of blade nor a favorite country of origin as it less the hunk of metal itself but the intent and style behind it that fascinates me. For me, my fascination is less about the swords themselves and more about the many fantasies and ideas behind “the sword” and the “life of the sword.”

We see a lot of “heroes” in the entertainment media who, with a sword, a gun, their fists, of even just their wits, strike down their malevolent adversaries and stand for what they believe in. While I enjoy watching a gun-man or a modern hero save the day, I always found the sword to the most fascinating. With it, warriors use their own strength and skill to strike down bandits, killers, orcs, and dragons alike.

With swords, axes, and spears of many shapes and sizes, there are many fascinating combat styles and ways of battling. It is somehow beautiful to see a master swordsman of one form or another tear down his or her opponents with waves, twists, and strikes in the various outlets of visual entertainment. Even more so, it is fascinating thinking about the mind of one of these “warriors,” what it must be like to wield a weapon and fight in battle or war, the courage they strength they must have in the trials they face, and what it must be like to take responsibility for their enormous and dangerous power.

It is odd how these characters do violent, brutal things, completely different from anything we do in normal society, and yet they are somehow role models for youth around the world. Looking at my fascination and people’s fascination in general with men who kill and objects used for killing for an objective perspective, it is very sick and depraved.

We cheer as our “heroes” wield their “mighty weapons” and brutally murder other thinking, living beings. In this sense, my fascination with swords and fantasy is rather cruel but for those of us who buy into these stories and ideas, I don’t think that blood lust is the focus.

Rather than enjoy the deaths of the villains in these stories as we marvel while a swordsman cuts a swath through his or her enemies, I think the marvel is based on the stimulation we get from seeing the astounding skill of the swordsman and of the shocking image of a villain being cut down faster and more precisely than the eye can see. My fascination is rather hedonistic in this way, marveling at a stimulating object to show me something beyond the peaceful life I live every day.

The psychology of “the lifestyle of the sword” also fascinates me. I often day dream about what it would be like to be in one battle or another, what it would be like to be a skilled swordsman fighting, what types of bravery and strength would be necessary to face the challenges I see in my entertainment.

These are situations I’d never truly wish to be in of course, but the idea of being a swordsman and being “strong” like the characters I see always appealed to me. Again, my appreciation of the swordsman in entertainment is hedonistic in many ways.

Yet, even in real life I still desire to know how to use a sword and how to fight. I imagine that there would be reassurance in knowing how to fight and physically defend my ideals. There is also that innate competitive spirit in me that wants to use my body to its fullest against someone else and prove to myself that I’m strong.

As a little kid I used to find long, straight sticks and imagine I was wielding a blade, but in the end it never gave me the feelings of strength I got from the media. Even when I was old enough to own a sword myself I still didn’t get the feelings I got from fantasy because I could never wield a real weapon and hurt someone. In the end, the swords I own are iron bars, killing tools I will almost certainly never brandish or feel at ease with.

This is the difference between fantasy and reality. I have always loved to entertain the ideas behind the sword in my mind but I know that to engage in the same feelings in real life would absolutely wrong. I’ll always enjoy thinking about and viewing swordsmen in the media though, and maybe someday I’ll take a class and learn how to use a sword and spar in friendly competition.

Stone Walkways

Yesterday night after a very productive session of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, I wandered home wondering what sort of object I should choose for my upcoming blog.

It shouldn’t be too hard, I think about stuff like this all the time. I just need to think of something good tonight so I can move fast on it in the morning. Paperclips, hair, bouncy balls, backpacks? Then, as I walked through the darkness staring pensively down at my feet, my subject hit me like the solid rock it was, Of course, stone walkways!

A stone walkway is one of the most unappreciated objects we make use of on a regular basis. Every day I walk to class, to the library, to town always focused on the task at hand, never thinking about my feet and weight grinding into the stone beneath me. Even when I look down I never see the stone. All I see is the reflection of my plans and fears against the gray slate.

For us humans’, walking becomes so ingrained that we move to our targets unconsciously, never aware of the stone that supports us. It is very symbolic of how we humans can get so obsessed with our daily routine that we lose sight of the various objects around us and the stories they have to tell.

It is almost tragic how stone walkways are so ignored after all they have done for us. It was the paved road which made the roman armies the unstoppable force they were as they could quickly travel to strike at their enemies or reinforce their territory. After they were built, stone pathways granted us a path through the dense trees, the thick brush, and the winding slopes. They allowed us to walk to our work without running our legs through the mud. Without stone pathways we would not have been able to make use of carts, carriages, and later cars and cargo trucks due to the rugged, rocky terrain. In these ways, the stone walkways gave us the ability to drift to our work, oblivious to our environment. Ironic how its function has made us oblivious to the work it does for us as it is part of the environment itself.

There is something very symbolic about stone pathways. It invokes the idea of a worker who has and continues to work extremely hard for the benefit others and is not only ignored by them but is literally stepped upon. It is a notion that the Latino workers who fuel our agriculture, the Chinese women who sew our shoes, and the soldiers who fight our wars may be able to understand. In the end however, stone does not speak, touch, laugh, cry, or complain. They just silently and diligently bare our weight as our shoes chip away at their surface.

Perhaps the stone are the servants of Atlas himself, the titan who upholds the massive earth on top his shoulders. Silently suffering our weight so that we preoccupied living don’t fall. Never to hear the words “thank you” in response.