End

As much as I'd like to discredit that my years at school shaped me, I can't deny that they, of course, did. There's a bias towards nostalgia that makes me hesitant to pop out old yearbooks and rave about how funny this was or how much fun something else was, but the longing for introspection is still there. 

When I Was younger, I used to separate school and private life completely in my head. I never really thought about school outside of school. I did my homework at lunch, during class, or more likely, the class right before. As I've grown older, though, I've begun to merge the two. Now, it's difficult to separate the huge changes in my life from school, the constant in my life. The habits from when I was younger still linger on. (I still have a strict no mentioning of the word "homework" policy outside of school around my friends.) 

It Was a very formative time. High school saw the most stressful and transformative time of my life so far. During high school, I came out, lived in France and Spain, studied Latin, French, Spanish and 5 others, developed my own voice, had a couple breakdowns, and made many of my best friends to say the least. It would be almost impossible for a person not to be somewhat sentimental about a time when so much occurred in their life. Though I am extremely excited for beginning my adult life, I still feel a desire to look back and think about and thank(linguistic nerd fact: "think" and "thank" come from the same root. "Thank you" implying that the person will think about the kind thing that the other person did for them) the people who were around me. 

I hope this post flowed as well as it did in my head. 

Thanks to everyone who helped me to become who I am today. Special thanks to my friends who kept me in the lines when I was swerving. Thank you, too, Ms. Genesky for being an amazing teacher who helped me through my rough times. I wish there were more people who are as nice of person as you.

Witty Whitman

Step 1:

On the inside cover of the journal, there appears to be a stamp on the page. Beside the stamp are names with addresses from the top of the page down. I now see on a later page that the stamp says The Library of Congress. A good portion of the pages are scratch work for his works. There is a drawing of an older man drawn in pencil. The drawing is simple, yet encompasses the man's figure well. The next drawing is of the same man with a disproportionate head to his body. The drawing seems to be almost in the style of a political carton. The man devolves as the pages go on. There is a mockup for a title for "The Bohemian". The rest of the journal contains a doodling of a skull on a heart with a dagger through it. I quite like it.

Step 2:

The first cover does show the addresses and names of people. The stamp was put there by The Library of Congress. The drawings are actually not done by Whitman himself, but they are rather of Whitman himself. The commentary suggests that the drawings were done by Pfaff, a friend of Whitman. One of the doodlings is of a harp and was possible drawn there because it is a symbol for poetry. The skull on a heart is suggested to be a metaphor. It is between day and night and life and death. Seeing the ravages of war makes a person question the true meaning of life when it goes away so easily and seemingly without meaning. The purpose of living must've weighed heavily on Whitman's mind and of the people during this time.