One Flew Over the Creator's Nest

When it comes to our modern structure of learning, it has become a social taboo than to do anything other than go to school, be taught what is taught to everyone else, and then to go off into the world with the same school taught knowledge that every other kid your age has. This system is flawed, but there is no way to change it. Education is a very important thing to have, and I'm not saying that nobody should go to school. If you've ever read the book One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest you may be familiar with the common themes of the book. One of which is "Big Nurse" who I will use as an example for university's and the working world. Big Nurse wanted every patient to be under her control, much like the world outside of Highschool holds you to a specific standard. This standard is the whole basis behind One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest. This standard is "The Combine". The Combine is a underlying system that everyone must conform to. In today's combine there is no room for a painter who isn't the best painter. In this world there is no musician or thespian that can get anywhere near being famous without first selling their soul and then allowing the industry to completely strip them of their self being and become a puppet of the media. For these reasons, in this world where the combine has held such a strong beach head for so many years, it is much easier for a person to simply conform and become an accountant. The sad thing is that even if a person becoming an accountant is secretly an amazing artist, the combine lets them know that they wont ever achieve their dreams and that they should just go to school like everyone else. The education system has completely destroyed creativity; even as a small child I remember it first hand. I personally was a talented artist and attended many art classes as a child. I even had a small exhibit in an art fair by the time I was ten. However the combine destroyed this for me. Now that I'm old enough to realize what is actually happening in the world I can see clearly what was happening when people would say things implying failure in my art future. This society idolizes celebrities for one simple reason, those peoples dreams came true while everyone else was too afraid of failure to chase after them. The combine prevents people from chasing their dreams and makes creative success seem like a far off chance, so it becomes something that most wouldn't even consider. The education system lies to people from a very young age saying things like "follow your dreams and they'll come true!" however further down the road the combine gets to people and they realize that the easy way out is to just conform and do as all others do. This is the world we live in, and to ever be anybody you must conform to the combine, that's how it is, and that's how it always be. As Jean-Jacques Rousseau once wrote in The Social Contract "Every man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains."

Thoughts on revision

Chances are, if you've ever written a paper, then you started off with a "shitty first draft". Chances are, you probably did some serious work on that first draft and made it into something you were very happy to hand in. The process used to fix up something so terrible as a "shitty first draft" is called revision. Revision is simply taking what you already have, cutting out parts that aren't great, and adding in parts that make it into your final draft. Revision is something that everybody can do, but not all people do it correctly. When I revise, I concentrate on following the rubric I'm assigned very carefully, and making sure that everything flows together in a neat, understandable sequence. The easiest way to accomplish a good revision is to have someone other than yourself read your paper. In most cases it's easy to overlook your own mistakes. If someone other than yourself reads your paper they can point out sections that don't flow well or has grammatical mistakes.