Joshua's English Blog

This is a really interesting question seeing as how I love stories with a heavy focus on action and/or adventure, but I definitely wouldn't venture to say that I'm a particularly adventurous or daring dude myself. I feel most happy in the comfort of my own home for sure, but if there's one verse I can picture myself having a blast in is probably Journey to the West. I've really gotten into the novel as of late after playing Black Myth: Wukong which is probably my game of the year at this point, and I can't help but find myself endeared to the protagonist Sun Wukong and his goal of preserving his freedom from a draconic and Kafkaesque heavenly governing assembly. I really see myself in him (no, not because he's a monkey you racist) and with his vast assortment of powers and literal stacked layers of immortality, nothing really poses a serious threat to him despite the perilous nature of his pilgrimage. He's having fun throughout most of the story because he...

I for the life of me can't wrap my head around the homophobic thought process. It's such a bizarre thing to me for anyone to be so preoccupied with the sexcapades of others when the behavior is consensual and doesn't affect you in any tangible way whatsoever. Obviously, religion plays a large part in the foundational spread of homophobic attitudes and systemic institutions of repression, the Abrahamic ones specifically. I've never been much of a pious believer myself so maybe these dogmatic beliefs are so incomprehensible to me precisely because I've never been in the thick of it, but it really doesn't make any sense in my mind for a righteous, omnipotent God to be so contemptible in his hatred of his children that he would command his followers to persecute each other for the crime of sleeping with the same sex. With racism, I can at least understand (not empathize or condone, obviously) that there are visible and more tangible differences there with which to s...

 Years ago (maybe late 2017-early 2018, somewhere in that ballpark) a friend of mine named Arturo resolved a problem I had with an older Puerto Rican kid at my middle school. The day prior, we had gotten into a heated exchange on the street outside of school, during which I said some detestable things about his mom's sexual proclivities, and he punched me in my head for it. I had two of my dogs with me and they just let me get rocked. Our relationship wasn't really the same after that, as you might've guessed. Fast forward to the next day, and I was so fearful of getting jumped on my way home that I smuggled a small pot in my backpack to use to fend off my imagined assailants. Arturo eventually found out and I explained to him why this was, and he resolved my beef with the dude that same afternoon. I had no idea he had the kind of clout needed to do something like that. Safe to say I felt grateful for his intervention, and I still cite that moment as my go-to anecdotal evid...

 It was astonishing to me that Trump bodied the Democrats in another election. American democracy has once again betrayed my heart. My iPhone's battery corroded and the whole thing keeled over just days before the homestretch of the election, and I only found out about it the next day in my first period algebra class. I was so fraught with bewilderment that I broke down into a laughing spasm. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The fact that the giant peach is really 2-0 against female candidates is really astonishing considering the PR nightmare he and his weird, crossdressing garden gnome of a VP embarked on which was the subject of ubiquitous clowning online and in news media. The Democrats really made all the right moves from an optics perspective, but I guess a majority of Americans would really rather be stuck in a room with a rapist crook than a black woman. I don't know what else I expected. Death to America, liberate Palestine.  Today we learned about India's...

 I remember one time I slept on top of my girlfriend's chest. That was bliss, I was so happy. I didn't want to go anywhere. I don't think I've ever felt so comfortable before or since. For the first time in a long while, I was content. I felt completely at ease. I'm too heavy for her, though, so we can't make that a regular fix. What a drag.  We also learned about two Indian cultural traditions in class today. They were both rather minute and disinteresting from my perspective, but I think learning about foreign cultures at all is a net positive, especially for an American like me.