How AP English Helped Me Connect the Dots

When Mr. Ziebarth instruced the class to create a Twitter and Instagram account for this class, I groaned internally. I have never been very tech-savvy, and the thought of taking up multiple social media platforms seemed like an exhausting waste of time. Who would even see my blog anyway?

Initially I hated posting on my blog. I didn’t like putting things on my Twitter and Instagram. But then something happened. I started getting comments on my blog posts. These comments were insightful opinions from my fellow classmates. These comments argued or agreed with my ideas, and they offered new perspectives I hadn’t thought of. These comments made me feel like my blog was worthwhile after all.

In the picture above, a fellow student from my second period class commented on my post, “Why Do Students Fail”, in which I explored how the pressures of learning in a classroom setting can demotivate students. When I wrote it, I did not expect anyone but perhaps Mr. Ziebarth to read it. Thus, I was pleasantly surprised to see that someone did read it, and she liked it enough to add her own input.

In her comment, Natasha offered new insight into my topic by challenging my position instead of simply agreeing with me. She told me to see things through the teacher’s perspective, because I had only been writing in the perspective of the student, or me. With her comment, Nastasha encouraged me to look outside my own perspective and I have tried to implement that into other pieces of writing I have done.

Mr. Ziebarth offered extra participation credit for commenting on blog posts, so I jumped right in. To be honest, I really needed the extra credit. I navigated through the class collection of Twitter accounts and blogs and read every article that intrigued me. And you know what? I actually learned something. I learned that Lauren from fourth period and I have similar views about our modern society and how people justify immorality by calling it freedom and love. In her article, “Who Are You to Judge?”, Lauren opened my eyes and connected ideas that I never could have tied together without reading her perspective. Now that I read her article I feel more able to express my feeling on the subject.

And that is exactly what sharing ideas is! It is expressing your original thoughts and putting them out there for people to read. And as people read and comment and share that is how great ideas get formulated.

That is one of the most important things I learned this semester. These social media platforms that I initially hated were designed to help me project my thoughts and to give people access to them.

Another great aspect of social media was the ability to comment on posts. For extra credit, I read an article published by the New York Times, and after thinking about it, posted a comment. The New York Times later published my comment, among other kids’ comments, so people could read not only what the New York Times writers had to say, but what kids from around the country thought about the topics. This gave me great confidence as a writer to be published in the New York Times.

Simply by commenting on a website, I was able to get my thoughts published so anyone can read them.

Sharing thoughts and new ideas through articles is a great way to connect with people, and it is how many ideas on politics and world issues are debated and shared today. Articles in newspapers (physical and online), are the most common ways to distribute information and debate ideas. But there are other means by which people can spread ideas.

My dance choreography teacher always told us to choose a topic we feel strongly about, and create movement based off of that. She said every dance is an idea, a story, a journey. Through taking the choreography class this year, I found that dance is a lot more than just steps.

Dance is communication. It is a language. But unlike other languages, it doesn’t have a direct translation to English. There is no dictionary outlining a limited vocabulary for dance, because dance vocabulary is endless, and varies from person to person. There is no way to explain the message dance gives, because it has to be watched and experienced to be understood.

Although dance is such a huge part of my life, I never thought it would be applicable in the classroom. The classroom setting just never seemed like the right place to dance out my ideas. So when Mr. Ziebarth asked why I didn’t use dance to represent my question exploration project, I didn’t know what to say. I guess I didn’t think they were connected? I’ve learned since then, that dance and English are very similar.

This revelation hit me the hardest during a tap choreography adjudication. The adjudication began with each piece performing and then the panel of judges giving comments and corrections. This in itself is similar to how we peer edit papers in class.

For this adjudication I submitted a tap piece that was performed by APA’s Tap Ensemble. I created this piece to represent how a soldier who was drafted into the army would feel and the range of emotions the soldier would go through in their journey. A link to the video of my piece is here.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q-Bq5zPI3Bl_LcTiAPxeV05H8DuVJGeX/view?usp=sharing

World renowned tap choreographer Linda Sohl-Ellison commented on certain components of my piece and how they added to the overall message I was trying to convey. A video of her adjudication is here.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1wOMD46wDFpSbOoQSgGOS_Ch_MBjmu84o

These elements that Sohl-Ellison points out, are similar to telling a story through English and Dance.

Concept: “I thought this was a great effort…at combining a concept, really being connected to your concept, not just in a superficial way”

In both dance and English writing, there is a concept. For my dance piece, the concept was a soldier’s feelings after getting drafted. When you construct a piece, you have to stay with the concept and every section of the dance has to develop the around concept. Similarly, with writing, you have to have a thesis that you stick with and you develop ideas around the thesis.

Title: “I’m always telling my choreography students to look at the title, don’t just arbitrarily slap a title on this piece. The audience should look at that title, and not necessarily know the whole story. The story will unfold, and it needs to have an openness as to what the story is as the piece unfolds.”

In both writing and dance, the title must intrigue the audience, but not give it all away.

Details: “Your choice of costuming was effective, the footwork, the formations, the formality, the reverence, the relationships. We had time to take in the lyrics, there was space”.

All the details in a dance must come together to further the concept. Likewise, the details in English must come together for character development, or to further the plot.

Connections to other works: “Connection to the music was excellent, to the point where the lyrics said raise your hand, there was a subtle arm movement. But it wasn’t pounding us over the head with matchy-matchy gesture to lyrics. Just a little reference”.

In English, when you are writing a synthesis essay, you can’t simply summarize the references. You have to use them to develop your own piece, not recreate them and make a copy. It is the same in dance. When using music with lyrics, you cannot mime the actions the music is talking about. You have to use the music to create your own story, not copy the story the singer is telling.

Tone: “You could work with your dancers maybe a little bit more on the tone, how to perform it. It’s hard because it’s not a smiley tap piece. What is that facial expression, what are we feeling as a regiment?”

Tone in writing is important, and must be clear. Tone can be created using specific language,  imagery, and characterization.

After exploring with the similarities between dance and writing, I found that another thing that is the same in both disciplines is improvisation. When I improvise in dance, I have no plan, no outline, no idea of what I am doing. I simply listen to the music, (or if it’s a cappella I listen to the rhythm in my head), and move the way I feel. I don’t even know what I am doing, I just feel. After, I have no memory of how I just performed and I am shocked when I watch a video of my performance.

Like dance, there is improv writing that we have done in Mr. Ziebarth’s class this year. He said to write without any kind of outline  and not take your pencil off the paper until the time is up. This is similar to dance improv because you can’t stop moving. Also, improvising in writing happens as an instinct, you listen to the voice in your head and you write it without thinking. After, you don’t even know what you have just written until you reread it.

Both kinds of improvisation allow you to see inside yourself. When you improvise in dance. You move in a way you didn’t you could because you were trapped within the boundaries of set choreography. Likewise, when you improvise writing, thoughts come out that you never knew were in your head.

By using what I learned from improvising in dance and writing, I have been able to write faster essays and pull my thoughts together quicker for the AP test.  

The most important thing I learned this year, is that everything is connected. Dance is an art but also a language, and English is a language but also an art. The things we learn in school connect to the things we learn outside of school. I also learned how to share my ideas not only through my writing, but also through dance. Mr. Ziebarth taught me that you can learn from anything, anywhere, and  I’m glad I got to be in a class that encourages learning in whatever way suits you.

Where Does All the Trash Go?

The novel, Grapes of Wrath, by Steinbeck, touches on social, economic, political, and environmental issues during the Depression. In chapter five, the poor tenant farmers are struggling to make a profit from the sandy, nutrient-dry soil. The land owners tell them to plant more cotton, which will suck up the last of the nutrients in the soil, leaving it irreparable. Then, they will sell the dead land to unsuspecting migrant families.

This example brings up many issues: social, economic, and environmental. I want to focus on environmental issue. The farmers know that by planting cotton, they are making the land worse. But they don’t think about how it will affect their future, they plant the cotton to get money for one more day, to buy food for one more day, to be one day further from starvation.

This is similar to an environmental issue we are facing today, which is garbage.

To be clear, I’m not going on a rant on Global Warming and politics and saving the whales, but I am concerned about the plastic I see literally everywhere. Whenever I go to the beach, I see plastic bags and bottles all over the sand, and floating in the water. I know it didn’t look like this twenty years ago. So why does it look like this now?

And what happens even if it all gets picked up off the beach? I am very concerned about landfills. Every time I hear the garbage truck ride through my neighborhood, I know that my garbage will soon be dumped with thousands of other black bags of garbage.

The thing that worries me the most is that people completely forget about trash as soon as it gets picked up. It’s like as soon as the garbage truck comes the trash is gone and not something to worry about. But it’s not. The trash is still here, on Earth, and it is very much something to worry about.

It is this attitude of not caring that leads to the build-up of trash. When I asked my dad if we should start trying to recycle more, he told me not to worry about it. That the trash will just decompose. But it won’t decompose because most off our trash is plastic!

If everyone stopped using plastic, it would help this problem, but that’s not possible. In this modern age plastic is essential to life. Plastic is used in shoes, clothes, pencils, water bottles, really everything.

The farmers in Grapes of Wrath did not think about the future, only how they we going to feed themselves here and now. Although they were aware they were ruining the soil by planting cotton, they disregarded it, like the way we disregard using so much plastic..  But if we all try cut down on how much we waste, it can make a difference.

Next time you wheel your trash bin to the side of the street, I urge you to stop and think about where it is going when it is out of sight.

 

Your Not Wrong

Thinking back over the year, the most influential text I  read was from the summer reading assignment. It was so impactful that every time I have written an essay this year I have thought about it. It was called “Politics and the English Language” by George Orwell.

Orwell argues that the written English language is declining as writers rely on vague, lengthy sentences that use many polysyllabic words, rather than convey the truth in the most clear way. He also accuses modern writers of repeating familiar phrases to conform to the popular style, instead of writing as an individual.

George Orwell points out flaws that I have identified in my own writing. The first is that English writing is “full of bad habits which spread by imitation”. Writers constantly use the same hackneyed phrases simply because those phrases are familiar to them, and it is easier to repeat something that has already been written, than to create one’s own prose. As more writers use these phrases, more readers read them, and those readers in turn use them in their writing. Orwell admits that the “attraction of this way of writing is that it is easy” and also quicker to write by habit.

Initially I wondered how this could be such a problem, but Orwell further explains how this cycle can be detrimental to the written English. He says that modern writers are not able to “think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tackled together”. In this way, writing becomes a habitual task in which authors reuse old ideas and images, instead of clearly expressing their individual thoughts. Writers who utilize the method of “gumming together long strips of words which have already been set in order by someone else”, often find themselves stuck with long phrases that are entirely lacking of meaning.

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.”

Like a cuttlefish that instinctively sprays ink when it is frightened, I instinctively spray out overused metaphors and phrases when I’m on a word count limit or when I’m on a time crunch. This is an instinct I was aware of when I began this semester, and thus, I was able to slow down and think before writing. With this article in mind, I tried to avoid impulsive writing and worked harder to create my own images and phrases. My main goal now when I write is to be as honest and open to my reader so I communicate my ideas clearly.

On the first week of school, we read Reading the Way of Things, by Daniel Coffeen. Similarly to Orwell’s article, Coffeen argued that people in society repeat each other too much, and it seems as though there is a short list of opinions that can be had and terms that can be used. He says that too often people try to understand things “as something [they] already know, as if everything fits into pre-ordained buckets of knowledge”, but this is not the case. There is not a bucket that we can pick out of that has every explanation in it. Coffeen goes further by saying that when we analyze, we tend to “look for the signs and symbols that map back to a meaning — a meaning that already exists”. And if we look for a meaning that already exists, we aren’t thinking of anything new. Rather, we are thinking up recycled ideas that we have already been told.

Coffeen explains that many people make the mistake of looking for more information elsewhere they are analyzing something, instead of relying on their own ideas. The example he gives is a book, and how people will study the history and the author’s biography more than the story itself. There is a mistaken notion that the only right answer is the one the experts give you, and “that in order to make sense of these things, we need the tools, language, and understanding of something else”. This is false, however, because it undermines the purpose of having an opinion in the first place. You can’t have someones else’s opinion, you can only have your own.

“Our use of a technology of reference that points backwards and elsewhere —to something bigger, broader, and more abstract such as concepts, ideas, and categories — inhibits the creation of the new, inhibits the possibility of creative, critical thinking”

I tried to keep Coffeen’s words in mind when I wrote my first Question Exploration. Although I used outside sources and a few expert opinions, my blog post was primarily my own ideas about the school system. I tried to steer away from typical complaints that I have heard from other students, and in doing so, found out that I had new ideas in my head that I, and only I, had come up with.

In the Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, there is a group of prisoners who have lived their lives chained to a wall, and they are shown shadows of objects. The prisoners are told the name of these shadows, and the shadows are all they have ever known. Then, one prisoner frees himself and sees that behind the wall, there are tangible objects creating the shadows. The freed prisoner realizes that what he thought was reality, is actually an illusion.

Like Coffeen, Plato is saying that some people believe there is a set name for things and they settle without trying to think on their own. They reuse what other people have told them, and they continue to tell more people, until everyone thinks that a dog looks like a black shadow, flat on the wall, when in reality, a dog is so much more.

What I mean, is that too many of us are living like we are chained down and forced to only see the shadow of something, when we barely even the outline of something that might have so many beautiful colors and details. We are limiting ourselves when we try to make sense of things by using only what other people tell us.

Instead of relying on what people tell us is the shadow is of, we need to find out ourselves. No one can tell us what the shadow really is unless we see it. We need to explore our own thoughts and find our way out of the chains that hold us down to the monotonous cycle of reused ideas.
In class we were shown a painting and told to explain it. Immediately, I wanted to search up the year it was painted, who painted, their backstory, and an interpretation of the piece on Wikipedia. I wanted to study anything but the painting. But I didn’t. Instead I stared at the painting without any prior knowledge of it and tried to use my own ideas to understand it. I found out that I didn’t need to use a list of keywords, or a “ how to” list of step by step instructions to understand the painting. I ended up writing my own understanding of it, the way I saw it and understood it, using nothing but my own individual life experiences of 16 years to help me. And when we found out the real meaning of the painting by using internet sources, I was completely wrong.

The two headed bird flying over a mountain was actually a girl holding an ice cream cone. And the large metallic dog was actually a kid on a bicycle. But how could I be wrong? After all, I had seen the image with my own two eyes, so how come what I saw was so different from what other people saw? Well, maybe there is no such thing as right or wrong. Maybe when the artist sat down and blotted shapes into existence with a thought in his head, the thought remained in his head and something new came out on the canvas. Maybe the author’s purpose was not to make us see what he saw, but to allow us to see what we want. To make our own conclusions instead of memorizing someones elses.

This semester, I learned that the sharing of ideas is not to form your brain to think one way about something, but to train your brain how to think your own thoughts. We don’t memorize vocabulary words so we can recite them like robots. We memorize them so we can express ourselves more fluently. The more we learn, the more we are able to think the way we want to, and to articulate ourselves. After all, if you only copy others, you can’t be yourself, and if you’re not yourself, who are you?

A Rose Against All Odds

Last Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and I spent the day at the beach avoiding all my responsibilities, just like any other three day break. Like any other high schooler, I appreciated Martin Luther King Jr., really I did, but I appreciated the day off school more than anything else. That is, until my mom insisted I listen to Dr. King’s biography.

Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the most influential leaders for civil rights in America. He was famous for nonviolent resistance and said that “there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth”. He gave his life to a cause that was greater than himself, and ended up changing the definition of racial equality in America.

After listening to all this, it made me wonder how one person could have such a resonant influence on their community.

In his book, The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester Prynne is publicly humiliated, branded as an adultress, and shunned by her society. Hawthorne depicts the people in Hester’s society as big, loud, gossips who possessed a ‘boldness and rotundity of speech..that would startle us at the present day, whether in respect to it’s purport or it’s volume” (4).These misshapen, obnoxious people even requested she be killed for her sins. She is so hated in her society that the poor whom she donates handmade clothes to, “often reviled the hand that was stretched forth to succor them” (37). Despite her hopeless situation, Hester is able to change the way society viewed her and become the most revered and respected women in the town. Through her readiness to serve those in her community, and her display of unwavering strength, Hester began to be seen as “a self-ordained Sister of Mercy”(113). The meaning of the scarlet letter on her breast changes from an ignominious symbol, to a badge of honor, and the people “said that it meant Able; so strong was Hester Prynne” (113). This change in perspective denotes a shift in society’s way of thinking.

Hester is an example of how an individual can influence their community, and in the novel she is likened to a rose which “by a strange chance, has been kept alive in history; but whether it had merely survived out of the stern old wilderness, so long after the fall of gigantic pines and oaks that originally overshadowed it” (2), no one knows. The rose is Hester because she somehow was kept alive through her trial and was able to shine through and overcome the spite and hatred that her community threw at her. The gigantic pines and oaks are the church leaders that tried to snuff out her light, like the way a tree blocks the sun from a flower. However, by a “strange chance”, Hester altered the way her society viewed herself by being peaceful yet strong, strong enough to withstand the pressures of society, and strong enough to never lash out at the unfairness of it all. Although people constantly battered her, Hester “had schooled herself well” and never responded to the attacks, “save by a flush of crimson that rose irrepressibly over her pale cheek”(37). Through her example, it can be gathered that Hester was able to change her community by being peaceful and convincing people through her actions.

Another person who was symbolized by the rose was Anne Hutchinson. In The Scarlet Letter, some people believed the rose “sprung up under the footsteps of the sainted Anne Hutchinson”. She was one of the first settlers in the American colonies that argued for women’s rights. She preached and held religious meetings in her own home, thereby challenging the authority of the Puritan ministers in her community. In her cross examination with John Winthrop, Governor of Massachusetts, she calmly argues for her rights as Winthrop states that her actions are “not tolerable..nor fitting for [her] sex”. Although she was convicted and banished away from her colony, Hutchinson’s legacy began to changed the way her society viewed women, and paved the path for future civil rights leaders to follow her example.

One such person who followed Hutchinson’s example is Ashley Judd. She was the first movie star to speak out against sexual assault through the New York Times. WE live in a society where women are shunned into silence. How can an employee speak out against her superior if she will be shunned, fired, and shamed by her community for doing so? By standing up for herself like Anne Hutchinson, Ashley Judd started a movement that quickly caught on. Now as more women speak out, our society is seeing “shocking results” as “CEOs have been fired, moguls toppled,[and] icons disgraced”.

“Women have had it with bosses and co-workers who not only cross boundaries but don’t even seem to know that boundaries exist. They’ve had it with the fear of retaliation, of being blackballed, of being fired from a job they can’t afford to lose. They’ve had it with the code of going along to get along. They’ve had it with men who use their power to take what they want from women. These silence breakers have started a revolution of refusal, gathering strength by the day, and in the past two months alone, their collective anger has spurred immediate and shocking results: nearly every day, CEOs have been fired, moguls toppled, icons disgraced. In some cases, criminal charges have been brought.”

From the examples of these influential people, it can be gathered that individual’s that have the most impact on their communities are peaceful and strong in their beliefs. Martin Luther King Jr. was able to enact change through his nonviolent resistance, showing that he was not going to back down until things got better, but also that he would take the higher route of nonviolence. Similarly, Hester Prynne was able to enact change by peacefully doing service and proving to her community that they were wrong about her. Both Anne Hutchinson and Ashley Judd spoke up and started a movement with only their individual voice.

With this new knowledge, I know that an individual has the power to change a community, and if I ever see an injustice in my community,  I hope to be peaceful and strong enough to combat it.

 

Why do students fail?

We all know that one smart kid in the class, the one who is incredibly gifted, and has a mind that can comprehend the most impossible theorems in algebra. We see this kid bored in class, refusing to complete homework, refusing to pay attention, and ultimately failing the class. Why does this happen? Why do these extremely intellectual kids, born with such potential, do so poorly inside the classroom?

Let’s begin with discussing the modern school system. Unlike learning in the real world, learning in the classroom is based on how well students can remember certain information. Classrooms are designed to follow a painfully repetitive process where the teacher lectures, the students take notes, and the teachers test the students to see how much they “learned”. This demotivating system reinforces the idea that learning is a negative, boring thing, only useful for the next test and never to be used again. On the contrary, learning should be a process of understanding, not a fun fact stuck to a flashcard to be memorized because someone told you. With this current system, it’s no wonder students have a negative attitude towards learning.

But it wasn’t always like this.

Every student was once a baby, curious about the world and eager to learn. Babies have an effective process of learning that is fun, and teaches them about the world, and about themselves. Through observations, and trial and error, babies are able to grow and make sense of new ideas and the world. No one straps their baby in a chair for hours and tells them how the world works. Instead, by going at their own pace and following their own interests, babies are able to learn language and understand the complex world around them.

So what happened in between kindergarten and high school, that causes kids to foster such negativity towards school?

“But this function of opening and feeding the human mind is not to be fulfilled by any mechanical or military method; is not to be trusted to any skill less large than nature itself. You must not neglect the form, but you must secure the essentials.”

In this quote from Ralph Emerson’s essay, Education, Emerson discusses the natural form of learning, the form that babies use. You can’t simply pour facts into a person’s head and call it learning. Instead, learning is a process, and everyone is different. There is no universal method that will be effective for everyone. This is one of the problems in standardized teaching.

Over time, learning becomes more of a forced thing and less of a new and fun experience. You go to school early in the morning and stay until the afternoon. You do homework daily. You must complete assignments by the due date or else you are punished. If you talk out of turn you are punished. If you voice your own great (but incorrect) ideas you are punished. This eventually leads to the idea that learning is not about discovery or about you. It is about conforming to what the teacher says you are. And learning what the teacher says you should know. If you can’t keep up to this speed, there is something wrong with you.

And this is where the negativity begins.

Grades do not immediately reflect intelligence level. If they did, gifted kids wouldn’t have a problem. Rather, students are graded on how well they can remember certain information. Facts are valued over personal growth. Consequently, smart kids who receive low scores begin to believe they are dumb. And when you think you are failing, you just give up. This causes students to spiral downward into failure.

This is demonstrated in Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. Throughout the novel, Holden displays a negative attitude towards school. He has failed out of three schools, and still doesn’t have any intention to try harder. He failed a history essay he wrote about the ancient Egyptians because he “couldn’t get very interested in them although [his teacher’s] lectures are very interesting”(pg 14). However, Holden loves the museum, and learned a lot about mummies from going there. On page 203 he enthusiastically shares his knowledge: “It’s very interesting. They wrapped their faces up in these cloths that were treated with some secret chemical. That way they could be buried in their tombs for thousands of years and their faces wouldn’t rot or anything.”

Holden was obviously interested in mummies, and possessed knowledge, but he failed his history course because he didn’t know the facts his teacher wanted him to know. His failures in school made him believe he was stupid, and he gave up trying even though he had an obvious interest.

The more students attach a negative feeling with learning, the less they will want to study or complete homework. Thus, the gifted students fail classes because school has taken away their love of learning and replaced it with dread.

A clear example of this is demonstrated here. Because the student did not write exactly what the teacher was hoping they learned, she got punished. Not only did the student receive a bad score, but she is taught that creativity is unaccepted. This bright student did learn from school, she just didn’t learn what the teacher wanted. This form of classroom learning- the choke down facts and hold it down long enough for the test to come kind of learning-is the reason why students are losing interest.

The Gallop Student Poll had a survey taken to see the trend in student engagement in school. It was found that students became less engaged as they progressed through school.

That is the primary reason for why smart kids fail school. They lose interest and don’t care if they fail, even when they are fully capable of doing well.

So next time you feel like you are failing school, remember that your grades are not your intelligence, and try to find a way to personalize what you are learning to make it interesting to you.  

 

Crazy or Enlightened

What I am looking forward to in English is how to cultivate my own thoughts and ideas. I liked when we read Plato’s allegory of the cave, because it gave me a new perspective and made me think about if i see things as they really are, or if I am blinded by ignorance. This made me also think about how we call people crazy like the man who saw the sun but maybe crazy people just understand more about the world. Many artists are considered crazy because their art is different and people don’t like that. This is similar to how the people who only saw shadows didn’t like when the man said the shadows were something else. Very intelligent people are also called crazy because they have a deeper understanding of things. I also liked the skateboard video and how there are different types of learning. I related to this video because i know that learning a skill in dance is the same process.  I look forward to learning more about how everything is an argument because right now I don’t understand how that is true.