I know this means something

Making music is easily one of the most meaningful things in my life.  I began making music seemingly by chance, though I'd like to think it was fated. 
I had a friend back in third grade who took piano lessons at this small music school.  She invited me to sit in a few lessons with her.  I started pestering my parents to let me take lessons.  Mostly because I wanted to be like my friend and do the things she was doing.  So we bought a small 44-key electric and signed me up for weekly lessons.  Now it's eight years later and I'm playing in the school musical. 
I started singing in a similarly spontaneous way.  It was the summer before freshman year and I was programming with my new counselor.  For some reason, she told me I had to take seven classes (I didn't know any better).  I had no idea what I was going to pick, I hadn't planned it out beforehand.  Instead of awkwardly wasting my counselor's time picking my final class, I looked for the first thing on the list.  What was it?  Beginning mixed chorus.  Now it's four years later and I'm singing in chamber choir.  
It's hard to imagine what I would do without music.  It evokes feelings and expressions in me that aren't strictly intellectual.  I'm sure at the root of it, there is some biological explanation for the way the pitches and frequencies vibrating in my ear drums are processed in the primal sensory cortexes of my brain.  But on a conscious level, I believe music has a meaning and power beyond its literal definition.  It is a way of communicating beyond words.  A language that all people can understand.  One can recognize the mood difference between the Entertainer and Mozart's Requiem just by understanding the language of booming minor chords versus allegro majors.  Yet both fine crafts can be appreciated in their own rights. 
I believe music has the power to bring people together, and at least for myself, it is something I must be a part of.  When the waking day is spent just with thoughts of language and speech bouncing from person to person, sometimes it's nice to settle back on an ancient language of feeling.  It touches those primordial parts of our beings that did not used to need words. 

Direction for this Class

I would like to start off by saying this is easily one of my all time favorite high school classes.  I feel like I can go in to this classroom knowing that I will have more to think about than when I came in.  I can go in there and know I will be interested in that day's topic of discussion.  And that at the end of the year I will come out a more intellectual and mature person than when I started. 
What improvements would I suggest for the class?  I don't feel like the discussion is balanced enough.  Sorry guys, what you say is really interesting, but we really need a system of participation that allows for more than the occasional outside comment. 
Also, I think the class needs a little more outside input.  I know we've read two books by great philosophers of old, but I think modern views are also very relevant.  We could watch short videos or read articles from outside philosophy professors.  Ideas from students are interesting, but a lot of times we end up going in circles and not truly addressing the point when we let the discussion get diverted in class (as interesting as these diversions are).  Maybe the class would have a little more direction if we brought in points of views from other people.  
Other than that, I think the class is going really well.  Even if we left it the way it is things would still be great. 

Who would Voltaire and Camus vote for?

I have no idea who these writers of old would vote for.  Would they lean more towards the liberals, the party that supposedly believes in more government social programs and less government restriction?  Or the republicans, who believe in less government involvement in socioeconomic issues and industry, but more restriction on the rights of their people?
Honestly, would they even vote at all?  To cast your vote says "Hey, I am taking an active role (no matter how small) in society at large, and I am expressing my opinion as to how things should be run".  It is easy to suppose that Camus would immediately refuse to cast his lot.  As an absurdist he would believe that his vote has no purpose and there is no point in deciding who should run our meaningless government especially since the outcome will not matter in the grand scheme of things.  But what about Voltaire?  From our reading of Candide, what conclusions can we draw about his philosophy?  Well, at the end of the day, Voltaire shows that even when a society has problems (all of them expect El Dorado), to attempt to change it could eventually lead to misunderstandings and mistakes.  Take the example of the monkeys and the savages in the woods.  Candide stumbles upon them and shoots the monkeys, assuming that they are unwanted creatures who are doing harm unto these women.  But, as it turns out, the monkeys were actually the women's lovers.  Through this narrative, I believe Voltaire is trying to tell us that we cannot actively change what we do not know because our preconceived notions could be wrong.   Therefore, I believe Voltaire would also sustain from voting.