VitaBeard

Beards are the best. This topic has come up more than a few times before, especially since my beard, at least the important beard-centric side portions, has always come up a subpar. My beard envy was only exacerbated over the summer when IFC aired their original program, Whisker Wars, a reality show about competitive bearding. These guys were so good at growing a beard that they gathered in one place and awarded each other trophies as tributes to their manliness.

The star and villain of the show, Jack Passion, earned the ire of other beard competitors, the Austin Facial Hair Club chief among them, by attempting to become the face of bearding and cash in on his facial hair growing ability. They think he's a sellout. While Passion does come across as a pompous jerk and a sore loser on the show, I can't blame him for trying to go pro and make some cash off of the fact that he doesn't shave. And, heck, it's worked, hasn't it? I follow the dude on Twitter, want to purchase his book, and now I'm relaying his latest endorsement mostly because I want it for myself.

It's a supplement that aids facial hair growth. To be clear, I have no false notion that this is anything other than a multivitamin, and even those are widely considered less than effective when their of the over the counter variety like this one. But I want to believe! I desperately want to think that this one pill, taken 2 to 6 times daily will make my beard fuller, thicker and more luscious. Don't be another Rogaine, VitaBeard. Don't break my heart.

Frosh
On Monday, we continued our discussion of Fahrenheit 451. The important idea that we focused on was the idea of perception and how allowing others to craft the perception of an argument or a rule grants them the power to create said rule's implementation. If others have that power, they control the idea, and controlling an idea is very effective tool when someone has an agenda.

Tuesday, the Link Crew came in and gave a presentation for the first half of the period and you annotated your books for the second half.

Everyone received a work day on the Censorship Project on Wednesday. You will have one more work day next week where you'll receive the rubric for the presentation as well as sign up for a spot to present. As a rule of thumb, I'm usually a much more lenient grader on those who volunteer to go first than I am than those who attempt to go last. Presentations begin the week of November 7. You'll have a rehearsal day on the Monday, and the following three days after that will be devoted to presentations.

Today, the plan is to introduce the concept of irony and attempt to make sure everyone can identify it in practice in our reading of Fahrenheit 451.

Seniors
We discussed the idea and implementation of evil, both in practice and as a concept, on Monday.

Tuesday, I collected your Thesis/Theme worksheets, and we collectively attempted to fix the level questions and theme statements of volunteers. Hopefully, you took this as a chance to modify your own by applying your own understanding to how you should construct your theme.

You received a day devoted to working on either the CD creation project or annotating your lit books on Wednesday.

Thursday, I tried something completely new and foreign to me with mixed results. We discussed archetypes and I asked you to write down your own examples of archetypes in small groups on the whiteboards I provided. However, I don't think my instructions were very clear. I modified them in asking you to come up with an archetype together (My example was the arrogant jerk boyfriend.) and then have each individual in the group come up with a different example (Bradley Cooper in Wedding Crashers and Stu's girlfriend from The Hangover both qualified.) all written on those shiny new whiteboards. With some clearer instructions, I think this is something I'll look forward to doing again next year.