Oct 27 - Blake uses the chimney sweepers to expose how society ignores suffering. Reflect on a time when you noticed someone being treated unfairly or saw a situation that didn’t seem right. How does this experience connect to the emotions or ideas expressed in one or both poems?

Response: My coworker, who I work with every Monday and Tuesday, has been getting harassed by the people working weekends. Every day when I come in at 12:45 PM on Monday, the cafe I work at is a complete mess from Sunday. I personally don't mind cleaning up after them, but it gets annoying after a while. I can understand if it was pretty busy that Sunday as well, and cleaning up after their mess is no big deal, but the problem is that they are doing this on purpose. The two shift leader girls who work on weekends (and are also dating each other) are the most petty and selfish people at our workplace. I don't remember why, but I guess my coworker got on their bad sides and is suffering the consequences. Every Monday, the messes just get worse. Last Monday, they had spilled a bucket of strawberry sauce that fell to the bottom of the freezer and ended up freezing over night. We had to take everything out of the freezer, wash it, clean the freezer, throw away everything that had strawberry sauce on it, and then put it all back, all while dealing with customers. They made a bucket of matcha latte that was just matcha powder and barely any milk with no sugar, so we had to throw that batch away. All these little things these girls do on Sunday night to leave for me and her on Monday morning are always on purpose and just keep getting worse. I keep telling my coworker to confront them about this and tell them that this is not okay and that they could get in trouble, but she wants to try and keep the peace. This situation can relate back to the chimney sweeper poem by connecting the idea of not speaking up for yourself because of an unfair situation you were put in. My coworker has been taught her whole life to ignore suffering and just "deal with it", even if it is making you miserable, and that just doesn't seem fair.

Summary: Today, we read a poem by William Blake called The Chimney Sweeper.

Reflection: Society tends to tell us to ignore our suffering and to just "deal with it like everyone else." This style of thinking is so unhealthy for the young minds that are going to eventually run our society, and may just be the cause of our downfall.

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