Post an essay! And Rate em!!

ok... heres something normal for a change.....
Everyone who wants to participate may.....

Just post an essay that you wrote and already had graded by a teacher whether it was budick or Schlager or whatever...
if oyu post an essay that wasnt graded........ well thats just stupid....

And then after we get enough posts everyone will read the essays and will make a poll and see who wrote the best essay!!
May the best man win!!!
And even if you dont win.... it'll be fun to read what others have wrote.... (you may post the mark you got on the essay if you want to brag....)
(im in the library now.... so I dont have my essays... there on the lab computers.... but I will post one being that I started this topic)

An Explication of Perfection Wasted by John Updike

“And another regrettable thing about death
is the ceasing of your own brand of magic,
which took a whole life to develop and market —
the quips, the witticisms, the slant
adjusted to a few, those loved ones nearest
the lip of the stage, their soft faces blanched
in the footlight glow, their laughter close to tears,
their tears confused with their diamond earrings,
their warm pooled breath in and out with your heartbeat,
their response and your performance twinned.
The jokes over the phone. The memories packed
in the rapid-access file. The whole act.
Who will do it again? That's it: no one;
imitators and descendants aren't the same.”
-John Updike

thought to his talent or the effort invested in developing it. Perfection Wasted is a poem by John Updike about the considerable care and dedication such “fun” or “interesting” people invest into the task of perfecting their discourse skills, and about the tragic loss to the world when one of these masterful weavers of words passes away. Dedicated orators, Updike propounds, are constantly striving to innovate and improve their their speaking “performances,” and over the course of his or her life each creative writer or speaker cultivates a unique dissertative style. Furthermore, none of these styles lends itself to imitation by another writer or speaker because each style is a reflection of the experiences and personality of the person who fashioned it; just as no two people are alike in either experience or personality, so too no writer or speaker can duplicate the style of another. An accomplished writer and critic himself, Updike's probably wrote this poem while looking back at his life and the works he'd studied, realizing that every writer has his own distinct style; indeed, Perfection Wasted follows none of the typical rhythms, forms, or meters for poems. Additionally, Updike was almost a senior citizen at the time he published this poem (59 years of age), and he probably wrote it aware of the fact that he himself had created a unique style and that when his time came, the continuation of his style would be lost to posterity just as were Shakespeare's and Mark Twain's. Aware that he could not prevent the loss, Updike was determined at least to promulgate it, and he did this in Perfection Wasted.
associated with arcane rituals and the occult; at its mention one thinks of witches hunched over cauldrons and wizards pouring over mysterious tombs. Here, though, Updike uses it in reference to the immense and widely overlooked power of the spoken and written word; many a crowd has been bound by a by a great orator as if by a spell, and many a reader has found him or herself compelled to continue reading a great book as if by a bewitchment. Is it not magic when a skilled diplomat negotiates a lasting truce between two warring nations, and is it not magic when a few words of encouragement from a caring friend inspire one to greatness? Do not the tricks and charms of the witches and wizards one reads about in novels pale in comparison?
commercial product is a lengthy and rigorous endeavor, so too becoming a syntactic magician requires perseverance and diligence. Moreover, just as building a successful career is a full-time enterprise that can easily take a lifetime, so too achieving literary or oratory excellence requires constant application even into one's old age.
friends one is hard at work devising “quips, ... witticisms, [and a] slant adjusted to a few, those loved ones.” Indeed, one's “own brand of magic” is a very personal thing, and everyone reserves a special air of familiarity for those times he or she is among informal companions. Exceptional writers and speakers go further, however, applying their considerable prowess in a way that will endear their friends and family to themselves, and composing special verbal or written works exclusively for the enjoyment of “those loved ones.” Few things please such gifted individuals more than making a group of close friends break out in laughter, or watching as smiles creep onto the faces of gathered family members in response to a well-placed, dry comment. To be sure, being among friends is a special experience for anyone, but for the gifted and articulate it is more than an experience; it is a performance.
standing at a “stage, [the loved ones'] soft faces blanched in the footlight glow, their laughter close to tears, their tears confused with their diamond earrings, their warm pooled breath in and out with your heartbeat, their response and your performance twinned.” For Updike, and any other person who commands the attention of a significant group of people, addressing an attentive audience is comparable to taking part in an on-stage production, with no less a feeling a exhilaration and empowerment; a feeling that exhorts the speaker to “give it all he's (or she's) got.” While performing as such, the performer forgets where he or she is, what he or she is doing, and even what he or she is saying; all of the sights, sounds, and feelings swirl together into a single, vivid conglomeration of sensory perception. The more significant and attentive the group, the more intense the experience, and who is more significant or attentive than one's friends and family? Moreover, this feeling is not limited merely to Updike or a few great speakers, for most people have at times felt as if they were performing for the benefit of an enraptured audience; be it from one's seat at a dinner table, amidst an informal meeting of friends on the sidewalk, or from the front of a classroom. However, while most people only occasionally enjoy the spotlight of their imaginary stage, truly great writers and speakers never leave the stage. Every “joke over the phone” is a feature presentation, and every memo is an encore. Such individuals live for their time on stage, and are always ready to deliver a performance. To this end, Updike puts forth, they compile a “rapid-access file” of “memories” from previous performances in case there is ever a need for an impromptu gig. A rapid-access file on a computer is one that the computer fills with important information that will be needed in the near future so that it can be accessed quickly and without delay. Such a “rapid-access file” as Updike describes, one filled with snappy comebacks and tried-and-true responses, would be a boon for any aspiring or accomplished conversationalist, for in conversation, timing is everything. Furthermore, it is not merely a few quick puns and punch lines that such individuals store in this file, nor it is merely a few lines of dialogue or dry quips. Rather, truly great writers and speakers store everything in a file for quick access: conversational strategies, opening statements and follow-ups, amusing anecdotes for every conceivable situation, and finishing moves that will end a conversation with gusto. In this file, they store “the whole act.”
upon the loss to the world when such a person passes away. If every performer's act is the product of a lifetime's experience and labor, and no two people have the same act, then when one of these great people passes away the continuance of their act is lost forever. This chilling thought of irretrievable loss contrasts sharply with the vitality of a stage-performance, and drives home the terrible emptiness brought about by the death of a skilled writer or speaker. The tone of Perfection Wasted is reminiscent of King Solomon's in Ecclesiastes; the thought that, over the course of a lifetime, some people develop a type of “perfection,” and that this “perfection” will one day and unavoidably be “wasted” is a sobering one indeed. it is the kind of thought that might lead one to stand up and proclaim “Futility of futilities! Everything is futile!”
the original point and asks rhetorically if a creative individual dies, then “who will do [his or her act] again?” Updike answers his own question bluntly and jarringly: “No one.” Although a person's contemporaries may mimic his or her style, and his or her children may have been influenced by their progenitor's performances, “imitators and descendants” just “aren't the same.”

Amen brother.

The End will be Nigh for another 2.5 weeks,
-Homer

i gotta tell you.....
there is no way in heck i'm reading more boring essays than i have to.
no offense.
but the nature of essays is that they are boring.

YYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGG!

Is that boring enough for you , huh? HUH??? You insult my intelligence, then my screen name, and now MY ESSAYS!!!!
YYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGG!!!

I pulled wool OVER YOUR EYES this week!!! I AM CANNONGANNON64!!!!!
YYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGG!!!

Homer. Palooza. Is. Not. CannonGannon!!!!!!
Come on. Would CannonGannon say "Pulled wool over eyes?"
I think not. Rather, he would have said "Yaarg!"
Dont believe him!

..... and my response cannot be expressed in words. it is merely a bewildered look.