7th Grade Poetry

Before middle school I had never thought of myself as a good poet, therefore I hated poetry. I was too stiff about it, I tried to make it perfect. I do that with everything, I'm a big perfectionist, and that gets very frusterating when I try to make things perfect and I'm not able too. This also contributed to my big dislike of poetry. But in block during seventh grade my teacher announced that we were going to be doing a poetry unit. Of course there was a loud chorus of groans and complaints, and my voice was part of that. But this was when I started to finally except the fact that poetry really wasn't my thing.

With that realization came a surprising event.....The first poem I did was amazing! It worked well together and expressed feeling while still keeping within the boundaries of the form of poetry. Apparently to write poetry all you have to do is relax! My lack of caring allowed my mind to go places where it had never gone before, i became creative for like the first time in my life! We had to do many more poems, and each one I did was better than the one before it. It got to the point that when we were done, the teacher chose my collection of poems to show to the class as an example. I was so proud of myself!

This event completely changed my vision of poetry, I learned to not only appreciate, but enjoy writing and reading poetry. I've gotten better and if I had the time, I would not mind writing poetry on my own time. My favorite part about poetry is how deep and full of emotion a short, concise section of a poem can be. Or how different poets are from one another, creating a wide range of poetry that that goes with any ones specific preference.

Conflict in Romeo and Juliet and in Life

There are many conflicts in this play, but there is one that really started all the misfortune in this tragedy. "Uncle, this is a Montague, our foe, a villain that is hither come in spite to scorn at our solemnity this night." Tybalt 1.5.69-71 Tybalt grows so angry at Romeo for coming the Capulet ball when he is a Montague. This feud leads to many others in the book...like the killing of Tybalt and Mercutio, the banishment of Romeo, and all the complications that come from those misfortunes. This specific conflict, though, is a society conflict with Tybalt making it a personal conflict.

There are conflicts of this nature in our life too. Many people still have some prejudice about someone else due to an aspect of their upbringing. Many of them are things that a person cant change either, like ethnicity or their social status and many other things that people are made fun of for. There are different ways that people deal with these conflicts. There's anger (as in Tybalt's and Romeo's case), there are the few cases where people try to work it out peacefully, there are the people who try to ignore it in hopes it'll go away, and then there's the people who try to fight it out. Most of the time, human nature is to fight it out, and you've seen how well that works out in the play Romeo and Juliet.

The Princess Bride is a movie about a beautiful girl who falls in love with a worker that lived on her farm. This worker (Wesley) was supposedly killed while at sea, and a few years later the beautiful girl (Buttercup) caught the eye of a prince and they were soon to be married. Wesley reappeared though, in time to fight for what he wanted...even though the marriage of a farm boy to this beautiful woman was unthinkable.

Romeo and Juliet and Myself

When we first meet Romeo he is sad and deppressed because he loves someone who does not love him back. I have had this happen many times to me before. But unlike Romeo, I moved on fairly fast. They were only crushes and I was very young most of the times. Also, all of the ideas we have discussed in this play are presented very dramatically, so they are hard to miss but easy to understand. I personally really like this read at home then annotate in class. Its a lot easier to notice the things that need to be annotated when they are read out loud and you have other people around you to catch what you've missed. Another thing I like about reading at home is that its a lot more relaxing, and I understand the storyline and what's going on at the moment a lot easier in silence then surrounded by people in class.

Great Expectations vs. Life

In this novel, money compared to love seemed a constant thing. Pip had to leave his family to get money, to get the woman he dreamed he only got her money and not her love, and when he finally gathered some friends and people who cared about him he was going broke. He could only have one or the other. But when he has money, his happiness has all but disappeared. So believe that the main theme of this story is to value family and friends over money. That though money is very useful, family is what keeps you going. You see this in our life as well. For example, celebrities obviously have a lot of money, and you always hear of them buying and doing crazy things with it. But there is constantly some fragment of news about how this certain celebrities life is on a downward spiral, or how this bad thing happened to them. Then there's the memoirs they are always writing about, saying they always felt lost and alone or something of the sort. This is how Pip felt when he moved to London with his Great Expectations. But then there's "normal" people like us, who just live out our lives with friends and family by our side. We may not have a lot of money (compared to those celebrities at least), but lucky for us we have people who care about us by our side. They more than make up for less than full pockets.

What I Think About "Great Expectations"

This story was very hard to get through. The time it took to set up the action of the story dragged out for such a long period of time that even i wouldn't have read it enough to get to the good part, and i have a lot of patience for reading slow books. The writing and word choice and meanings behind words that's put into this book is pretty amazing though, and once you are past all the explanations and groundwork the mysteries that are solved puts an exciting and interesting end to the book. The mysteries really appealed to me because mystery novels are my favorite style of writing. So being able to infer some of the mystery's endings and get them right gives me a sort of satisfaction. I also love how all the loose ends of this story seem to be neatly tied up at the end. I do happen to prefer the original ending Charles Dickens wrote though, the new ending seemed extremely abrupt and vague to me. The old one is also a happier ending and more fulfilling to me and my enjoyment for happily-ever-after endings. My reading habits, though, were far from what was required. I started off diligent, not knowing what to expect. But after a little while reading was so uninteresting that it became cumbersome instead of enjoyable. I found myself scanning over chapters in 5 minutes, or looking up Spark Notes in a flash, so that i can understand what we talk about in class. I did a lot of the work in my 1st period class, in a rushed haphazard way that showed nothing of what i am capable of. This knocked my comprehension of this novel down a lot for a long period of time, until i read and heard enough about what i had missed to understand the book more clearly. My procrastination is what tended to hurt my reading habits, which in turn hurt my comprehension, and in turn my grade. No i understand this i can do better in the future.

Pinocchio = Pip

Pinocchio and Pips life have a few similarities in the story line. Both of them are born into a hard, poor life and end up wishing for something better....for Pip it was wanting to be a gentleman, and for Pinocchio it was wanting to be a real boy. This is the main theme for both of these stories, but among the many hidden themes, they also share the theme of lying. The reaction of lying in both stories is fairly different...Pip feels guilty about it, and Pinocchio's nose grows longer. But both messages are the same; lying leads to problems in the future, and the truth is always found out. Another idea constant in both stories is the idea of family. Pip realizes how wrong being a gentleman is when he realizes he misses home, and being a fairly alone but rich gentleman is not near as enjoyable as being poor but surrounded by loved ones. Pinocchio finally becomes a boy when he does the right thing and tries to save his father figure (Geppetto). Altogether, these two stories have many themes in common, even though the story lines aren't exactly similar

Making Connections

There are a few themes that Great Expectaitions shares with To Kill a Mockingbird. For example, the theme of crime and punishment. In Great Expectations, theres the constant use of convicts and prison. Mr. Jaggers works with crimnals and Pip visits a prison and aids a convict. In To Kill a Mockingbird, most of the story is based around the trial of Tom Robinson and the crime he supposedly commited. To Kill a Mockingbird also shows the good and bad parts of society, the innocent present along with the evil. This is shown by the cruelty of characters like Bob Ewell, and the kindness displayed by Atticus.
Also the different sides of society is shown in Great Expectations, again through characters and their given personalities. Joe is very innocent and kind, sort of like a child. While, as Pip grows higher in the social status, he meets people like Mr. Drummle, who's cruel and unkind. Both Pip and Scout (who use nicknames rather than their real names) learn this lesson as they grow older and are exposed to these different parts of society. Also, both Pip and Scout are shown the idea of becoming a "lady" or a "gentleman"....Though the appeal of this is a lot less in the mind of Scout as it is in the mind of Pip.
So altogether, these two books cover many of the same themes...though in a very different story line is it shown.

Second Stage

When meeting Mr.Pocket Pip also came across Mr.Drummle and Mr. Startop. These are two people who are quite opposite of each other, and are a good example of contrast in this book. They also join Pip at the Pocket's for tutoring, and have the extremes in personalities. Startop is very kind and fun to be around, and eventually becomes one of Pip's friends. While Drummel is very cruel and tends to shower people with his hatred and anger. But beyond this you know near nothing about their lives. You dont know their families, where they're from, reasons they're there in the first place. This is one great mystery, as are many other things in this book.

A Link, Then a Chain

In this quote Pip is talking about how going to visit Miss Havisham changed his life. How this one small event manged to change everything he had previously lived for. Pip would never have been exposed to the life of a gentleman, a life other than the life of the poor, if he had not visited this rich woman's house. This idea of a gentleman has turned Pip into a miserable boy though. Now that he's been shown another way of life, he is no longer satisfied with the one he currently presides in. He spends decades trying to accomplish this goal of belonging in the same style of life as Miss Havisham, shaping his personality along with his social stature, all because of this first link in Pips chain.
The first link in my chain could be said to be my introduction into select soccer. Before then I played many sports for the fun of it and to stay a little active. But being introduced into a competitive atmosphere changed that. It grew on me, and I started to have a competitive nature too. It showed me discipline, hard work, teamwork, and confidence...things that I had really lacked before. I would not be the same outgoing and tough person I am today without this one link in my chain of life.

Question for chpts. 26-35

"So, he got into his place, still making complaints, and the keeper got into the place mext him, and the convicts gaule themselves up as well as they could, and the convict i had recogniized sat behind me with his breath on the hair of my head." (194)


Why did Pip have to ride with the likes of convicts? He has a lot of money, shouldn't he have the privilage of a whole coach to himself?

Dishonesty in The Importance of Being Ernest

This entire play and the charactrs lives that are being depicted seem to be entirely based on lies. Nobody is who they seem... there are fake relations left and right... engagements to nonexisting people... the lies are never ending. They lie to gain their own pleasure, as when Algernon comes up with Bunburying to escape from his relatives. There were also things like epigrams that make up this play. These epigrams about silly facts of life are always philisophically said but have more humorous insights. Then there's the satire of social institutions....how Oscar Wilde makes people in higher social classes extremely snotty. or how he refers to marriage in a negative nature half of the time it is referred to...and the other half is in a very shallow nature. For example, when Lady Bracknell is interviewing Jack too see if he was good enough to marry Gwendolyn. Throughout the play, education is also looked down on as only for the poor and not at all suited for anyone of the upper class. Finally, there's the constant reference to Earnest...the name and the type of character. The interesting thing Wilde di with this, though, is that he would constantly use both of the meanings at once...to put a humorous spin on whatever was being said.

Altogether, Oscar Wilde seems to be saying that dishonesty is okay. No matter how dishonest anyone in the play was, the never got reputed, or punished, in a way shape or form. Instead they were rewarded with marriage, love, and forgiveness. Making for an altogether happy ending.

My Project Vs. Other Projects

Conor: Picture
This was really a clever way to represent the themes and everything else that was supposed to be represented. The foreshadowing, in my opinion, did not seem present, but the themes were obvious.

Daryl: Picture
The left side of this picture was very clear in my mind. It covered every part that was required, but the right side did not seem necessary.

Olivia: Picture
This picture could have used more effort....but the pig and the person are cute and a lot better drawn than mine would have been.

Joel: Picture
I like this picture, it was very easy to see what the theme was and how things changed through out the story. It did not, though, include everything that was needed.

Galen: Comic Strip
This comic strip was great, i especially liked the pictures and how well they matched the words they were paired with.

Keenan: Comic Strip
I thought it was actually quite funny. The pictures used for the animals conveyed little messages about the theme within themselves which is very creative.

Emma: Picture
This picture would have been very hard to understand without the explanation, and you can tell it was done in a very short time. But with the explanation the pictures were quite clever.

Britta: Poem
This poem clearly represented everything from the theme to foreshadowing. But I believe it recalled so much of the story line that at some points it seemed to be retelling the whole thing.

Meghann: Picture
The picture itself did not explain much, it was the writing that did the most work in this project. But the writing was good so all the points that needed to be made were made.

Porter: Picture
This picture told the storyline more than anything else, foreshadowing was left in the dust along with many other things. The execution of the drawing was very well done though.

Mine and Amaya's Project: Movie
I thought our project did very well at covering every part of the requirements. I also thought the idea of doing a movie makes it very unique when compared to all the pictures that were done by the majority of the class. I do wish we had started it sooner during break though so it could have been more polished and we could take time to do the filming so that my head and amayas fingers weren't in almost every single shot....

My Amazingly Wonderful Animal Farm Movie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0Okhij0oqI

WATCH!