Journal 26

I think snow is one of the parts of nature that brings people together the most. When people think of winter and spending times with their families during the winter one of the very first things they think about is Christmas, and the next thing they think about is snow. People young and old can put aside their age differences and enjoy snow together.

There are so many forms of ways to enjoy the snow. There is sledding, snowmobiling, making snow angels, making snowmen, and even one of my personal favorites, making snow ice-cream. Making snow ice-cream is one of my very favorite things about snow.

I remember the first time I made snow-icecream was with my grandparents when I was really young. They live in Michigan so we only get to see them a few times every year, so when they come down to Illinois to visit us it is usually a really big deal. And, because I was so young, this particular time they visited I was absolutely obsessed with snow. However, it was around February and all of the snow in Illinois had long since melted. Because they lived in Michigan though, and it was still a lot colder there, there was still about a foot of snow on the ground in Michigan. So, being the good grandparents that they are, they packed a cooler full of as much snow as they could possibly fit and brought it to me. About three quarters of the snow we used to make a snowman in my front yard. I thought it was the coolest thing ever that there was no snow on the ground anywhere but I still had a snowman in my front yard. The rest of the snow we used to make snow ice-cream and, of course, I immediately became addicted to the stuff. What kid isn't addicted to a high concentration of sugar?

Anyway, this was one of my fondest memories from childhood and I know I will always remember it. Snow does that; It brings people together.

Dark Romanticism in "The Minister's Black Veil"

I preferred "The Minister's Black Veil" by Nathaniel Hawthorne much more than "The Pit and the Pendulum" by Edgar Allan Poe. I believe the psychological aspect of the story and the way that it depicts Dark Romanticism is much more affective than the doom and gloom found in "The Pit and the Pendulum."

The main affect felt by "The Minister's Black Veil" was the way that humans are inherently evil by nature. Each one has all kinds of dark secrets and things they are ashamed of, which is what the pastor is trying to prove by wearing the black veil. His veil is used as a symbol of the evil and sins that separate people from one another, which is a characteristic of romanticism, specifically Dark Romanticism in that it talks about the evil tendencies of humans rather than goodness (Hawthorne).

Not only are humans naturally evil, but they are also prone to hiding their evil and closing it off from the rest of the world because they are ashamed. Most people are too afraid to do what the pastor did, which is showcase his sins and sadness to the world in the form of his veil. By doing this he took responsibility for his sins and the way they separate a person from the people around them if they are ignored and never addressed (Hawthorne).

The last thing I saw out of the story was that humans are naturally prone to judging each other rather than looking at their own faults, and they are scared by things that they do not want to address because they hit home way too closely. While yes, the pastor did wear his sins upon his face quite literally, the truth is that every person is just as guilty as he was. The people of the town knew him and his character, and they knew that he was a very good man, yet they chose to shut him out of their lives because he actually took responsibility for his sins and that scared them (Hawthorne).

The truth is we all have our own black veils. Whether they are deep dark secrets of things we have done it our past or simply evil thoughts we have entertained at times, we all possess them. The fact that we all possess them should teach us to be understanding of one another and the fact that we all have our faults. But instead of doing that we all choose to hide our own faults and point fingers at others in order to take t he attention away from ourselves. In this way we all suffer our own form of personal torture as the things that bother us slowly eat us up inside. If only we could all stop acting so high and mighty and admit that none of us are perfect, the world would be a much happier place. The fact that the pastor, one of the most holy men in that town, was the one able to step up and acknowledge that he is a sinner says a lot about our society. All of these dark truths that are revealed about society through this writing is a classic example of Dark Romanticism (Hawthorne).

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "The Minister's Black Veil." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffrey Wilhelm. American Literature. Ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill. 2010. 280-289. Print.

Journal 24

I believe on a certain level every person wears a mask at some point in their lives. As humans we have an inborn desire to fit in and become like other people in order to be accepted. I believe a significant amount of this happens during the middle school years. When people are in middle school their hormones are just starting to act up and they are very confused about life in general. It is easy to become wrapped up, during these vulnerable years, in the things society would have you believe are important. When you are in middle school all you really want is a place where you truly belong.

When all you want is to belong, there is a high probability that you will change yourself in order to achieve that goal. People change themselves in all manners of ways in order to fit in with a particular group. Some change the way they talk, the way they treat others, or the way they dress. Sometimes these changes that people adopt for acceptance are valuable and important changes, but most times I believe they are harmful and destructive changes. Unless the person you are aspiring to become like is a truly good example, usually someone older and wiser than you, most likely you will find that their influence has a negative impact on your character. Because the truth is, if someone cannot accept you for who you are then they are not a good friend anyway.

Generally people begin to develop into the person that they will become as they go through high school. Most habits are formed in these years, which is why it is extremely important for one to create a solid foundation during these crucial years. Occasionally people still try to become something they are not after they have passed these years in order to fit in with a group at work or in one's neighborhood, but generally the time of pretending is grown out of by the time one reaches an age of maturity.

Dark Romanticism in The Pit and the Pendulum

There are just a few main, distinguishing characteristics of dark romanticism that I found repeated over and over when researching the topic. These are as follows: dark romanticists believe people are naturally prone to sin and evil, they believe the world is dark, decaying and mysterious, they believe that nature reveals truth about the world but that when nature reveals things about life they are mysterious and evil, and dark romanticists didn't ignore evil, but they acknowledged it and the horror of it. I also believe an aspect of dark romanticism is exploration of the darker side of the spiritual realm and the way that it clashes with our own in points that we can see on certain occasions. The belief in the evil and supernatural is very evident in some works of dark romanticists.

The Pit and the Pendulum, written by Edgar Allen Poe, a distinguished dark romanticist, is a clear example of many ideas of dark romanticism. The first place in which this is showcased is in the mood as the story opens. The feeling of the story is immediately set with the foreboding words of the first sentence: "I was sick, sick unto death, with that long agony, and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me." So already, as the story opens, the narrator has managed to settle an air of depression and hopelessness upon the scene. Later in the same paragraph the narrator describes his judges as though the very lips on their faces were some great symbol of evil and finality. Through these examples the author has illustrated the characteristic of the horror of evil(Poe).

The way the world is decaying and mysterious is illustrated when the narrator awakens in a dark, disgusting prison. Upon further exploration he deduces that he is in a circular prison with a deep pit in the center which it is intended for him to fall into. At one point rats enter his prison and attempt to eat his food. This disgusting filth and these vile living conditions show the decaying and mysterious nature of the world(Poe).

The prison the narrator is in is very inhuman in the way it punishes him. The pain inflicted upon him is both physical and mental. He is tormented both by the grotesqueness and unhygienic nature of the prison and the prospect of falling to his death or being sliced open by the scythe, physically, and he is tormented mentally by the constant, slow descent of the scythe and eventually the slow progress of the walls of the prison as they push him inwards towards the pit. The combination of these many torments, rather than a slow, quick death, prove that humans are naturally evil and prone to do bad things to one another(Poe).

The tale of the pit and the pendulum is both a horror story for the ages and a lasting example of the era of dark romanticism. As described above, the fundamental ideas of dark romanticism are all represented within the short story. It is truly a classic sample of the genre that is dark romanticism.

Works Cited

Poe, Edgar Allen. "The Pit and the Pendulum." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffrey Wilhelm. American Literature. Ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill. 2010. 263-273. Print.

P. Pendleton Cook on "The Raven"

Personally I was just really annoyed by the author of the analysis I chose. I thought he was trying to make himself sound smart by using big, flowery words, and I thought that he was basically just a huge fan of Poe who tried to write this analysis as a form of hero worship towards Poe rather than as an objective and intellectual essay. He backed up his observations with points, but it still came off as annoying.


One particular quote I found annoying:

"Notwithstanding the extended publication of this remarkable poem, I will quote it almost entire—as the last means of justifying the praise I have bestowed upon it(Cooke)."

First of all, I do not think it is necessary to quote virtually the entire poem in order to justify your like of it. It is perfectly acceptable to take out certain excerpts that you think particularly demonstrate your point and end there. Secondly, I think it is kind of irritating when people automatically jump in and give their stunning reviews of something at the beginning of their analysis. Personally I just do not find this a very professional way of going about the matter. I would have been much more willing to accept the author's opinion if he had simply stated his point in his thesis and then went about proving his point. As it was I was basically annoyed from the first minute I started reading and that probably gave me a biased opinion towards his points in that I was more likely to disagree with his ideas.

I think the author read way too much into the poem. He even mentioned at one point that he thought the word napping was a particularly fantastic and life-altering word chosen in the first stanza. Personally I thought that this was a bit much. If Poe were around he would probably tell that guy it really was not that big of a deal, he just wanted to convey the idea that he was taking a nap. Sometimes I think that analyzers tend to get so wrapped up in what they are doing that they tend to see things that are not even really significant or there in the first place(Cooke).

The author goes on to use such words as "exquisite" and "phraseology", leaving you wondering if he really has any idea what he is talking about at all or if he just likes to sound smart to other people. There was a lot of fluff and talk but he did not really end up saying very much(Cooke).

The author even went on to quote such mysterious people as "Mr. Willis" and "Miss Barrett", two people to which he gave no credibility or reason in which to believe them except that they gave him their opinions on the subject and they were positive(Cooke).

I found myself constantly thinking "prove it" to the claims he made about how wonderful certain aspects of the poem were. To put it simply I was thoroughly annoyed.

Selected Bibliography
Cooke, P. Pendleton. "Edgar A. Poe," Southern Literary Messenger (January 1848). Reprinted in The Recognition of Edgar Allan Poe, ed. Eric W. Carlson (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1966): pp. 21–23. Quoted as "Review of 'The Raven'" in Harold Bloom, ed. Edgar Allan Poe, Bloom's Major Poets. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 1999. (Updated 2007.) Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= BMPEAP21&SingleRecord=True (accessed November 22, 2010).

Analysis of The Raven

The poem is pretty easy to understand literally. It starts off with a man sitting by himself on a lonely night, reading a story and trying to forget his sadness over his lost wife, Lenore. Soon he hears a rustling in his curtains and convinces himself that it's just a visitor at his door. So he went to check the door and realized that there was nobody there. So he just stood there by the open door for awhile whispering his wife's name and hearing it echoed back to him. Then he went back inside and soon he heard a tapping. He convinced himself it was just the wind hitting the window. Then he opened the shutter and in flew a raven and sat on a statue in his room. He started talking to the raven and it said "Nevermore." Then he was confused because the word made no sense in the context of the conversation but he also doubted that this could be the bird's name. Yet the bird continued to repeat that single word over and over. So he sat and pondered why the bird would possibly be saying this word over and over and while doing so also thought about his lost love. Then the air began to feel thicker in the air and so he thought the bird must have been sent by God or a devil of some kind and he shouted all kinds of accusations at it but it still just said nevermore again and again. He then asked the bird, believing it was a prophet, if he would ever again be able to hold his love, and yet again the bird said nevermore, so he became very angry and told the bird to leave but it just sat on its perch.

There is a set rhyme scheme used that is something like A, B, C, B, B, B. I don't know if it is considered a poetic device but he also uses a lot of repetition in the way the raven is speaking to convey an ominous sort of feeling. There is also an allusion to the time period because he is sitting there reading a book that was actually written during Poe's time period. So in a sense he was adding publicity to whoever wrote the book.

The figurative meaning, I believe, is that the raven is the depression in his life that he can't quite let go of. It is sitting there in the corner of his room watching him all the time, no matter what he tried to do to stop it. When he reasoned with it, when he spoke to it kindly, when he screamed at it,when he yelled at it, despite anything that he did to it it still hung over his head like something he could never be rid of.

Journal 24

There have been several times in my life when I became anxious or scared because I thought I heard something I really did not hear.

One specific time was when I was about ready to go to sleep and I was reading a book. Now my room is in the basement and nobody else is down there so it can be freaky all because of that, let alone when you start to freak yourself out. So anyway there I am reading and it is around 11:30 at night and all the sudden I swear I hear somebody tapping on my window. I have one of those egress windows in my room so I thought maybe somebody was tapping on it from the outside.

I live in Salem Estates and there have been a lot of robberies lately, so I was already kind of paranoid about that. So then when I heard the tapping on the window I thought somebody was trying to get to me through that window. Nevertheless, I told myself that I was just hearing something and went back to reading. About a minute later I swore I heard it again. But once again I went back to reading my book. Then I heard it again and I got really freaked out that time. I started thinking about all those horror movies where people just ignore it when they hear something sketchy and then they end up dead. So I ran upstairs and told my parents what I heard. My stepdad went outside to check it out and came back a few minutes later and said he did not see a single thing out there. Still, I was scared so I decided to spend the rest of the night upstairs in my brother's room. Around 1 in the morning I woke up and decided I had to go back down to my room because otherwise I wouldn't have my alarm to wake me up, but I was too scared to go by myself. So I woke my brother up and made him go with me.

Obviously in the end nothing ended up happening to me and it was all in my head, but nevertheless it was still really scary.

Analysis of Analysis of Walden

The author of the analysis starts out by talking about how Henry David Thoreau showed the true principles of Transcendentalism through his works, specifically his most noted work, Walden.

I agreed with the author's point of view that through the account of his stay at Walden Thoreau set an example for other Transcendentalism believers through his display of self-reliance, frugality, economy, a personal relationship with nature that lives in every human, and environmentalism. The author points out that through his journey to Walden he sought to separate himself from society, because one of his core beliefs was that society was destroying the world because it was taking away people's individuality.

The author makes a good point in the second paragraph when he talks about the way Thoreau worked to eliminate excess in his life and not waste anything. The author points out that he built his cabin for a mere $28.12 1/2, but that the point of this endeavor was not to preach the idea of hard labor, since Thoreau did in fact build the cabin himself. But rather the idea of what Thoreau went through was that if you do not live in excess and spend a lot of money daily, there is no reason why you should even have to work hard on a daily basis. You could simply work a little bit each day and never worry about your money running out or having to work too hard to finish it. I think the fact that the author caught this is very important because many people might think that his purpose was to show that hard labor is important, not to teach that living without excess is key.

The author points out a lot of symbolism that he found in Thoreau's writings in the third paragraph. He discusses the way that some of his writings in which he described journeys that he took were not only acccounts of journeys through areas and guides to where beautiful things are, but rather they were also guides through his own spiritual journeys to find enlightenment by being in the midst of natural, beautiful things.

Thoreau also uses the seasons and times of year that pass by at Walden as symbols of journeys taken by the individual throughout his or her life. They go through the journey of spring and new birth and life all the way to winter when everything dies, and then back to spring where everything is alive anew. The author does a good job of proving how much Thoreau really reflected Transcendentalism and the beauty of nature through his works.

The author also discusses the difference between Thoreau and other Transcendentalists by showing that Thoreau truly wanted to commune and live within nature in order to better understand it. Other Transcendentalists, however, such as Emerson, were interested in exploring the subject but not by physically placing themselves wholly within nature itself.

I thought it was a very good analysis with many valid points that proved that Thoreau was a true Transcendentalist and also explored many of his theories and ideas about life.

Works Cited
Wayne, Tiffany K. "Walden." Encyclopedia of Transcendentalism. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=1&iPin=ETRA402&SingleRecord=True (accessed November 15, 2010).

Journal 23

I would love to be able to spend a one week camping trip where I really lose all contact with technology. I mean honestly I would kinda hate it a lot but at the same time I think it would be really good for me. I have tried to spend time doing things without my phone at all a few times but I have never tried to limit myself to no technology at all. I think it would be extremely difficult for me to lose my music and my phone at the same time, because if I am not involved in one at a particular time I am involved with the other.

I think I would spend all of my time writing. I would probably end up writing a lot of poems and thoughts down in a special book that I write everything down in. I think that would be incredibly good for me to spend a weekend where I have nothing else to do and therefore I focus my attention on writing.

I would also got on a lot of hikes I think. If I had my bike I'd bike some trails and also hike them on foot. This happened to me at one point because my family went on a vacation to Branson and we found this huge nature place full of trails that you could explore. When we got inside we figured out that there was no cell phone service there. So this is the place where I wandered around, rode the bike trails, hiked the other trails by foot, and wrote my summer blogs. It was very peaceful and wonderful and I would love to be able to do it for a week.

I think it would also be very nice because I would spend a lot of time with my family. It would be more like their generation growing up and the generation before theirs where people would sit around and talk to each other and tell stories in order to entertain themselves rather than being solitary and amusing themselves with their individual gadgets.

Thoreau vs. Gandhi

Thoreau and Gandhi's two pieces, "Civil Disobedience" and "On the Eve of the Historic Dandi March" are both very influential pieces based upon acts of protest. They are very different in some ways but also much alike in others.

Clearly the most fundamental similarity is the act of protest happening in both of the works. Thoreau's cause is a protest against poll taxes that Thoreau protests against by simply refusing to pay it. He then spends a night in jail for his protest and refusal and tells the tale of his stay in the local jail.

Gandhi's protest is against the tax on salt that is being imposed upon the people of India. His cause is also a protest against this tax, but his speech is a plan for protest rather than an account that is written down after the protest. The speech takes place the night before the protest, hence its title "On the Eve of the Historic Dandi March." In his speech he discusses three different ways in which the people can protest the tax peacefully without using any form of violence.

The writing styles of the two men are very different however. Thoreau almost makes it seem as though everything is about him in his works. He talks about how the government is wronging people and it all comes off as almost a way he is complaining about he himself is being wronged specifically. His work was not so much a call to arms for a chance to occur as it was a dissection of the very problems he saw in the government as a whole. Because of this he does not seem to touch the readers on quite as much of a personal level I do not believe.

Gandhi, on the other hand, was very good at touching people on a personal level. The whole point of his speech was to rally together troops and call them to action in order to get something done peacefully and efficiently. His cause was not personal, but rather it was to benefit the entire nation and stop the wrongful occurrences he felt were being imposed upon his people. His main concern was to make life better for the people not just for himself. For this reason I felt as though he touched the audience on much more of a personal level.

I believe the important thing to take away from these speeches is the point that protest and change do not always have to come at the price of blood. Sometimes people can be mature adults and handle things in an adult matter, which means talking about them or even protesting them but in a peaceful and non-violent way. These works stand as examples of that. In Gandhi's case these works went on to become actions that eventually led to change. In the case of Thoreau, although he might have influenced many people with his works, I do not believe there is an immediate source of action that can be verified. However both men have provided us with one thing and that is the inspiration to affect change with our words rather than our weapons, and that is an invaluable lesson.

Works Cited

Gandhi, Mahatma. "On the Eve of the Historic Dandi March." American Literature. Comp. Jeffory Willhelm. Columbus: McGraw Hill, 2009. 229-30. Print.


Thoreau, Henry D. "Civil Disobedience." American Literature. Comp. Jeffory Willhelm. Columbus: McGraw Hill, 2009. 222-27. Print.

Journal 22

I know you might not agree with this, but in Romanticism they put value on true love and all of that and the romantic heroes and everything. So one time I helped a friend break a rule in order to be with the person that she loves. It was not a law that I broke, but it was a rule of this girl's parents. We'll call her Ashley and we'll call her boyfriend Steve.

So Steve is a freshman in college and Ashley is a junior in high school. However, Ashley and Steve have known each other since Steve was a junior in high school and Ashley was a freshman in high school. They have been friends since then, and her grandparents were okay with that. Then they began liking each other towards the end of last year, which was Steve's senior year and Ashley's sophomore year. Her grandparents were okay with their relationship then, but as soon as Steve got into college her grandparents said that they could not date anymore. By this time they had been friends for over two years and dating for about three months and they cared about each other a lot. So, naturally, both Ashley and I thought that it was unfair of her grandparents to say they could no longer date simply because he was now a college student. He was the same boy he had been for three years.

So one day Ashley's car broke down and she did not have it for the following two weeks. On a Sunday of one of these weeks Ashley really wanted to spend the day with Steve but she had no way to see him without her grandparents finding out. Getting there was no problem because she had her grandparents drop her off at the mall. However the getting home part was tricky. So she called me and she asked me if I would take her home if Steve dropped her off at my house. So that is what we did. I felt bad because I helped her deceive her grandparents, but I felt as though it were for a noble cause and so I went through with it anyway.

Mark Edmundson's Analysis of the Works of Melancholia

In the literary analysis done by Mark Edmundson, he points out that one way that Ralph Waldo Emerson, he points out specifically the way Emerson handled the death of his wife and the brother that he was very close to. Rather than mourning and becoming depressed over their deaths, he had a positive energy flowing through him during that difficult time. He did not believe in the common mourning process. Rather, he believed that “The object of life, as Emerson would see it, is to redeem our grief over what we are not and have not.” He believed that mourning over people was a waste because it was putting all of our spiritual energy into something that we would never get anything out of. This shows transcendentalism, which is the group that Emerson belonged to, because with these ideas he is blazing a trail that leads to spiritual independence rather than keeping with the constraints and bonds of the social norm. Many thought he was strange for not mourning the deaths of his loved ones, as we find it strange now, but in a way he is right in that the spiritual energy does not do us any good wrapped up in death.
The author discusses the way that Emerson talks about how as humans we are constantly being proactive within our souls and growing to new levels. One example that the author of the article uses from Emerson’s works is the way that in one of his texts Emerson likens us, as humans, to shellfish as we slowly but surely outgrow our homes and then leave them to find others that will suit us and we will be able to build up around us as we grow. Unfortunately, Emerson says that when this happens and we experience a moment of spiritual growth, we tend to attach it to some form in the physical world, such as a religious rite or some sort of literary text.
Unfortunately, then our souls, aching for stability, take those ways in which we are only meant to get out the evidence of our spiritual growth and turn them into “ultimate truths.” We then use these outlets for our spiritual growth and turn them into constraints for our spiritual growth. Emerson’s belief in the complete and total wrongness in this behavior once again shows us how Transcendentalism affected his work. This lack of belief in the common ideas of religion and the idea that each person individually is responsible for their own spirituality is a core principle of transcendentalism. Although the author of the article does not specifically talk about the way that Transcendentalism is shown through the works of Emerson, if one knows anything about transcendentalism it becomes very evident in the way Emerson writes, and I found it very important to understand his beliefs in order to understand where he was coming from in his essays. The author did a great job of illustrating Transcendentalism without even mentioning the word itself a single time.

Journal 21

Ralph Waldo Emerson and Benjamin Franklin, both great minds of their day, agreed on some topics of human nature and disagreed on others.

They seemed to agree that men are given a certain amount of talents and gifts and it is their job to make of them what they will. Some are better at things than others but regardless it is still their job to make the best of what they have.

However they do not agree in terms of society. Emerson states in his essay that he thinks that society is a silly thing. He states that "Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members." Basically what he means by this is that by creating a society we force ourselves to conform to the mold of the society and therefore take away the manhood and individuality that each of us were born with.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Benjamin Franklin who believes that society is incredibly important and vital for our society. He believes that learning how to work together and form a society is a huge benefit for everybody.

Emerson says:

These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

Basically what he is saying in my opinion is that everybody thinks that society is important in order to achieve equality and the ability for each man to receive due, but truthfully it just punishes the individual by causing them to change and conform to the patterns of the society. So in essence what is supposed to be to the benefit of everybody is really taking away their freedom of expression.

Journal 20

Self-reflection and taking a break from society are very important to me. Sometimes I feel as though I am too reliant on all of the technology that I am surrounded by on a daily basis. I hardly ever go even a half an hour without my phone, for example. When I do not have it nearby to check about once every two minutes I kinda freak out a little bit. I know this because I tried to give my phone up for three days over the summer once. That did not end so well. I am pretty sure I made it maybe half a day tops. So sometimes I try to slowly limit myself and other times I just give in and use it anyway.

Sometimes things just do not go your way for a day or a week or a month or maybe even a year. You feel like everything is just unfair and people just constantly keep letting you down and you do not know what to do. It is these teams that I feel like I need to just kinda get away. That is where getting away from society comes in. If I cannot completely get away from everything, I usually go outside and jump on my trampoline for awhile. It is usually pretty quiet in my neighborhood and I just kind of chill out there and get my peace of mind back.

I also use writing for self-reflection. When I come up with something that is bothering me that I just kind of need to get out I write it all down in this book I have. I guess it could be considered a journal in a way but I don't write in it regularly, just when I need it. Then I go back later and read what was bothering me at the time and most of the time it has already been solved and everything turns out okay. But it's also nice to have when I have a problem and I can go back and see what I did in certain situations.

Journal 19

My ideal United States would simply be going back to the values that the people in our generation have tossed by the wayside throughout the years. I am a religious person, but I agree with the idea that state and religion should be separated. Freedom of religion, or lack thereof, is a very important part of what has made our country great. However, most of the other changes that we have made over the years since this country was settled by British immigrants are not good ones.

I wish for a world where we could go anywhere and still feel safe. I wish for a world where we did not have to lock our doors for fear of thieves coming in our houses and stealing things or harming us. I wish we could stop by the side of the road to help someone in trouble without worrying about harm befalling us. I wish parents could have peace of mind when their children left their houses when the sun came up on weekends and came home at dusk because nobody would ever dare harm them. I wish everybody could trust everybody to do the good and honorable thing all the time. I wish everybody quit worrying about things and just lived and helped each other instead of being obsessed with themselves all of the time. I wish the court systems were just and could always find the right verdicts. I wish for a country that kept their promises and therefore was not billions of dollars in debt because they spent money they did not have.

However all of that is an idea. There is evil in the world and therefore there will never be perfect peace and happiness as long as we are here. Nobody can possibly do the right thing all the time. But there was a time in this country when people did not have to worry as much about crime and sexual abuse and murder. There will always be worries, to worry is human, but they do not have to be worries like that.

Analysis of The Last Leaf by Oliver Wendell Holmes

The poem is very easy to understand literally. It is written in plain English with not a lot of big words or phrases. Basically, the poem is talking about a very old man. He passes by the door of the narrator twice while hobbling with his cane. When he was younger it is said that he used to be the best man in town. But now he just wanders the streets alone and seems to mourn about all of the people he used to know who are gone. The people that he loved have long since been buried. The narrator’s grandmother, who is dead, told him that long ago the man had a Roman nose and bright red cheeks. However, now he has a thin nose and a crack in his back and his voice cracks when he laughs. And the narrator knows that it is wrong to laugh at him but he can’t help himself because the way the old man dresses is so strange. The narrator ends by saying if he lives to be the last leaf upon the tree he will be fine if the youth laugh, as he is laughing now, at the silly branch that he clings to.
There are a few similes used in the poem. They say that his cheek used to be like a rose in the snow, and they say that his nose now sits on his face like a staff. The only other poetic device used is likening the old man to the last leaf on a tree because he is the last one left where many used to be, and they liken his style and mannerism and the way they are thought of as weird by the youth to the way an old bough on a tree looks strange when it has only one leaf left on it.
The hidden meaning is that the old man is like the last leaf hanging from the bough of a tree. All the other leaves that have fallen off already are the people that he loved who have already died and been buried. The bough is old and outdated and so to outside observers it looks strange, which means that the old man is old and outdated and those around him who see him think that his mannerisms and dress are strange, so they laugh at him.

Fall

The leaves are falling softly all around
Gliding gently to their rest upon the ground
It seems to some that it's a lot like death
But it's really the earth, giving us our breath
A chance to settle down and to relax
When life begins to really start to tax
So breathe it in cuz soon life will go on
For winter comes and then the sun is gone

Analysis of Thanatopsis

Thanatopsis is a very difficult poem to simply think about in a literal sense because it uses a lot of symbolism that makes you want to look deeper. However, here is what I think the literal meaning of the poem is. It starts off by talking about how nature can take different forms depending on what you need from it at the time. When you’re happy it has a happy side, but when you’re sad it has a soothing side to make you feel better. It then goes on to tell you that when you start to think about death you should go out into nature and you will hear its voice coming to you from all around. Then, soon after, you will die and be joined to nature. You will
literally mix back into the elements of the earth and be a part of it. It then goes on to talk about how the whole world is just one giant tomb for all of the people who have come before us and died. All of the vast numbers of people in the world are nothing compared to the people who are laid to rest beneath it. Everywhere you go, even if you are alone among the living, you are still among the dead because they rule everywhere. And when you die it doesn’t matter if nobody even notices you’re gone because everybody has the same fate in the end. Even if the people who
are happy go on being happy and the people who are sad go on being said, they’re still all going to meet the same end eventually. The people who are alive now will eventually be buried and the ones who bury them will eventually be buried too. So live in a way that when you end up getting taken to the land of death you will go like peacefully and not like a prisoner being taken to their doom.

The term couch is used a few times throughout the poem as a metaphor for a grave or a
final resting place. In the last stanza they also used a prisoner dragged to a dungeon as a metaphor for a person being dragged to their grave unwillingly. There is also an allusion to mythology and the underworld in the way that they talk about where you go after death. They talk about the way that the dead rule there and you get dragged there when you are dead. I believe this goes along with Greek mythology and the idea the afterlife taking place in an actual world where all of the dead go.

The true meaning and point of this poem is that no matter who you are and no matter
what you have or don’t have in this life, we all end up in the same place. We are all going to die eventually and nothing else is going to matter. So the important thing is that we live every day in a way that when it comes our time to die we will be able to go into the light without any regrets at all. The author is trying to tell you to be one with nature and don’t let the thoughts of death that
it can bring up at times stop you from enjoying it while you can. One day you won’t have it anymore, but there’s nothing you can do about it.

Works Cited

Bryant, William Cullen. "Thanatopsis." Poetry Archive | Poems. Web. 28 Oct. 2010. .

Journal 16

I really love nature so I would say I bond with nature a lot. My family owns eighty acres of property in Virginia, Illinois where we basically just go to be in touch with nature and spend some quality time in the great outdoors. We have a small trailer on the property that was there when we bought it, and we renovated in and put bunkbeds, a kitchen table, a couch, and a TV in it. On the weekends when we get the chance we go down there and spend the night in the trailer, and we spend our days outside doing pretty much anything we want. There are two ponds, lots of hills, valleys, streams, and forest areas.

On one hill in particular my stepdad was built what he calls a "lookout tower" to go on the top of the hill. Basically he's just created a three-story open structure out of wood that you can climb to various levels of and look out at the landscape around you. The view is truly breathtaking from that viewpoint. There is also a rockwall on the side of the tower that is fifteen feet tall which you can climb on if you feel like doing something more athletic as you enjoy nature.

There are also many trails that we hike on in Virginia. My stepdad went through the woods and drove with his four-wheeler to make trails. He never does anything to disturb the natural occurrences of the forest. In fact, he has worked with the local conservation people to come up with better ideas on how to preserve the land and make sure everything in it thrives. He has created several food plots to attract deer and other things to the property. He also cut down all of the trees that choke the life out of the other trees in the forest. Virginia is my favorite place to go in order to appreciate nature and natural beauty.

Journal 16

I have two favorite websites. The first one is Facebook and the other is Picnik.

Facebook is obviously really addicting and that is why that one is one of my favorites. It kind of becomes an obsession to constantly check for notifications and update your status. Most of the time I end up writing song lyrics as my statuses because song lyrics are the way I express myself the best most of the time. Music would happen to be my favorite way of expressing myself. I cannot write actual music itself but I can use lyrics more than anything to get my point across. I even write my own lyrics sometimes. Lyrics are much more powerful than regular words in my opinion. They make you listen and they pull in your attention more than just typical writing. Anyway, so most of my statuses come out as lyrics and if you know what is going on in my life the lyrics I post at the time make sense. You can typically decipher my mood through the lyrics I post. I am not one of those people who writes down every second of my life and makes my Facebook page look like more of a Twitter site.

I also like facebook because you can look at everybody's pictures. If you take a good picture with your friends it is nice to be able to show them off to all of your own friends in one place. Nobody really prints off pictures and gives them to people anymore. Typically you can find them on Facebook and save them to your computer and then print them off from there or order them. These pictures off of Facebook bring me to my next favorite website.

My other favorite website is Picnik. It is a website that you upload pictures to and then tweak them to make them look cool. You can change the colors into all kinds of different things and adjust the saturation and temperature of the picture. You can also add in text or stickers and just make your pictures look pretty. I love doing that.

Journal 15

I use logic and reason in pretty much every part of my life. I am the type of person who has conflicting tendencies as far as how I behave towards certain situations. I am a blue-green so I think both with my head and my heart I suppose you could say. But the green side of my mind is very analytical and thinks things through from every possible angle and thoroughly before I do anything.

I think about even the most minute details and analyze them in my everyday life. I try to dissect every single meaning in everything that people around me do. This might sound kind of weird but I love to people watch and see how people interact with each other. I guess that is the writing part of me coming out. I am fascinated by the way people think and deal with others around them. Maybe I should be a psychologist. Anyway, because I like to spend so much time thinking about everything that somebody does could possibly mean, I tend to over-analyze every action that people take around me. This can get mind-numbing because there are so many possibilities for what someone means by something, but nevertheless it is my nature and I cannot stop it.

I also clearly use logic in school. When I'm doing my homework a lot of times you have to use concepts and twist them around to do what you want with them. Equations have to be manipulated, story problems have to be analyzed and a course has to be chosen, and of course in English you have to think deeply sometimes about what hidden points an author is trying to make with every word they choose.

I love literature and reading because so often you find hidden meanings that are not easily detectable if you are not looking for them. So many times people write things with an obvious surface meaning but a deeper underlying meaning that they are hoping somebody will be able to find. This kind of challenge is something that I love. I believe sometimes writers even place hidden meanings inside their texts subconsciously and they themselves do not realize they are doing it.

Common Sense

I appreciated Thomas Paine's ideas about monarchies, specifically hereditary succession, in Common Sense. He makes many valid points about what people believe or claim about certain types of monarchies and what is really true.

For many years people have claimed that usurpations are the root of all evil basically and lead to wars and outbreak and cause all kinds of problems. Those same people say that hereditary succession is the answer because it stops these problems or at least keeps them under control. But, as Thomas Paine points out, this view is very flawed and untrue. The following statement summarizes Paine's view on why hereditary succession is a good idea in theory but not in reality:

"But it is not so much the absurdity as the evil of hereditary succession which concerns mankind. Did it ensure a race of good and wise men it would have the seal of divine authority, but as it opens a door to the foolish, the wicked; and the improper, it hath in it the nature of oppression. Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions."

This theory is very true because it is human nature to become full of yourself when you are taught from a very young age that you are very powerful and must always be obeyed. Because the throne so often falls to such unfavorable children, there are many wars that break out when people get irritated with putting up with the lack of good leadership that these rulers are entitled to simply because of their bloodline.

I also agreed with Paine's view that the idea of hereditary succession leaves the door open for any person to come to power or manipulate the country based upon the vulnerability of a young ruler. When a child is growing up and not yet ready to take power they are basically at the mercy of their advisors and anyone else who has any sort of influence in the country whatsoever. This leaves so much opportunity for corruption and mischief that it is practically child's play.

The author also comes out and says that monarcy, whatever way the ruler may come to power, succession or usurpation, leaves nothing but problems to the world. He makes this statement:

"In short, monarchy and succession have laid (not this or that kingdom only) but the world in blood and ashes. 'Tis a form of government which the word of God bears testimony against, and blood will attend it."

To sum up, I greatly appreciated the way in which Paine presented his argument about the ridiculousness of monarchies and the way he used a significant amount of historical evidence as proof. He certainly convinced me.

Selected Bibliography

Paine, Thomas. "Thomas Paine's Common Sense - Text Version." Archiving Early America: Primary Source Material from 18th Century America. Web. 18 Oct. 2010. .

Literary Criticism Review

I very much enjoyed the way the author showed that the Autobiography is the first great book in American literature and still remains quite possibly the single most important today. I enjoyed this because the author was sure to point out that the reason for this book being such an influential one was not because it had lots of fancy words and phrases and it was not because it was structurally sound and wonderful. No, the reason that this book is so important to us even today is because of the idea that it conveyed to all who read it; the story itself was the very embodiment of the American Dream (Lemay).
The American Dream has always been portrayed as a "rags to riches" sort of fairytale, as it was referenced in the criticism. However, I appreciated the author's point that the story was not only the embodiment of the American Dream because Franklin began his life a poor boy and ascended to riches and comfort. No, while that was an important piece of what the American Dream is all about, the most important parts were not about the money. As the author states in the criticism, it is about the rise from impotence to importance, and it was also about the rise from dependence to independence (Lemay).
The author proves this point by citing from the original work the following quote, "Having emerg'd from the Poverty and Obscurity in which I was born and bred, to a State of Affluence and some Degree of Reputation in the World …" which is basically explaining how Franklin rose from being nothing into being one of the most powerful and influential men involved in founding our country (Lemay).
Another of the most important aspects of the Autobiography which was brought up by the author of the criticism was the way that the story showed that individuals truly can make a huge impact on the world. The American Dream provides a way for every type of talent and motivation in existence to thrive in some way. The American Dream is an outlet promising that no matter who you are or where you come from you will always be able to find a way to use what you have and make it (Lemay).
It was interesting to see the author's comments on how Benjamin Franklin believed that every action that a person does has an outcome that can change the course of history. Although it was not really mentioned in the criticism, this idea goes along with the Rationalistic idea that there is an all-powerful God who brought us into existence and gave us the tools which would make us capable of survival, but after that God simply left us to use our own devices to make of life what we will. Franklin is showing that he believes that every one of his actions was necessary as a means to an end of what he would one day become (Lemay).
Overall I found the criticism very insightful and it really got me thinking about how much Franklin's autobiography meant to the people of the time and how it effects us even now.

Selected Bibliography

Lemay, J.A. Leo. "Franklin's Autobiography and the American Dream." In The Renaissance Man in the Eighteenth Century. Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, 1978. Quoted as "Franklin's Autobiography and the American Dream." in Bloom, Harold, ed. The American Dream, Bloom's Literary Themes. New York: Chelsea Publishing House, 2009. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=1&iPin=BLTTAD005&SingleRecord=True (accessed October 13, 2010).

Declaration of Optimism

I am hereby declaring my belief in the general goodness of optimism. We few people who tend to see the sunny side of life are basically the coolest people ever, I mean no big deal. Truthfully though, when one nation reaches the point in their lives when all hope is lost and everyone is living under a rainy cloud, optimistics are your superheroes. People with a lot of optimism can raise the spirits of five hundred people just by going about their daily business and smiling at people a lot. When you see someone with a bright, sunny smile your natural reaction is to smile too. And even if your day is going terribly and you think the world is ending, no matter if it's fake or not, a smile makes you feel better. Positive endorphins are released that just make you feel better about life. In a sense, they trick your brain into thinking it is happy. And I mean really, who does not need to be tricked into thinking they are happy every once in a while? Because that is all that optimism and happiness is. It's a state of mind.

We optimists truly believe that happiness is a choice that you make. All you have to do is choose to see the sunny side of life rather than the dark one. And maybe when you start out you are just going to be pretending to smile and pretending to be happy. But that's okay. Optimism does not come as naturally to some people as it does to others. Some people have to really work at it. But even if you just start off trying to act happy, eventually it is going to wear off on you and you are truly going to become a happy individual. Happiness and optimism are like an infectious disease that you just catch by being exposed to it every once in a while. It's a wonderful thing, it really is.

Journal 13

I think school spirit is a really important thing to a high school. Especially in recent weeks our high school has had a really rough time with things we have been forced to deal with and ways we have been forced to grow up. I think as a whole this spirit week has been greatly needed to lighten the spirit. Tiffany's passing has brought us all together as a school but that remembrance that brings us together also, understandably, makes us sad. This week of us coming together as a school for something more light-hearted and fun was a welcome change.

Spirit is important in anything you do, and a sense of unity makes anything you do go over better. The sense of pulling together as a class that we have been experiencing this week is fun.

On the flipside, too much spirit can be a bad thing. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in having spirit that we do not even focus on what we are even supposed to be having spirit about. Then we tend to turn on each other or take things to extremes.The classes get so wrapped up in competing against each other that they turn against the other classes in an unhealthy way or even turn against each other, then we start to have problems. Sometimes harmless pranks against other classes escalate and get out of hand. Also, sometimes people in the class simply do not have what they need to dress up for a certain day and do not really have the money or the opportunity to get the proper costume and therefore they dress up. Then people who are so caught up in the "school spirit" get mad at those people for not dressing up even though they could not do anything about it. That victimizes people and takes spirit to a bad place, and that is when we end up getting our spirit weeks or certain parts of our spirit weeks taken away.

Journal 12

Most of the time I don't enjoy working with partners. If I work with a partner it's usually someone I actually like, which means I get absolutely nothing done, or it's with someone I dislike and that is just an unpleasant situation in general. I do not like working in partners because most of the time one person does all the work and the other person sits there and talks or does nothing. It is difficult to find two partners that work at the exact same speed so usually one of the partners works faster and therefore supplies the answers to the first partner in order to keep them up to speed. Although this would seem nice to the second partner in this scenario, I would much prefer to be the person doing all the work. First of all, I trust myself and my own work more than I trust anyone else's work, no matter how smart they are. Second of all, I am aware of exactly how much it actually hurts you to just copy and move on. You never learn the lesson and then later on during a test or quiz you have no idea what's going on and therefore you receive a bad grade. It is much more beneficial to simply do the work yourself.

Another downside to working with a partner is that you tend to compete with the other partner to get the problems done first. Nobody likes to be the slower partner or feel inferior to the other. Therefore, both partners tend to rush through everything in order to be the first to complete the current task and this causes a lot of stupid mistakes to happen. It is best to go at your own pace and slow yourself down to think things through.

I think teams of at least four are a good idea because that involves a lot of people contributing their own individual ideas and collaborating to make something new, however.

Journal 11

Values and ethics are also a really important part of who you are as a person. They determine how you act in society and towards others and what you are or are not willing to do as a person.

Unfortunately, sometimes it is the people with less ethics and values who succeed in life because there are not a lot of lengths they are not willing to go to to get what they want. Business people are typically those who do not have high morals and values. Succeeding in the business world involves a lot of backstabbing and secret deals that disable your conscience.

Those who stick to their beliefs whether or not it hurts them in the long run would be considered to have high ethics and values. Unfortunately these people are taken advantage of by those who do not have high ethics.

Religious people are considered to have high morals and values, or at least they are supposed to. Morals are the foundation of any religion. Morals are what keep people in line or on the right track. If our society today did not have any morals at all everything would be insane. Crime would run rampant because everybody would do whatever they wanted without feeling any guilt and nobody would assist those were being wronged because they would not have the values necessary to help out. It is a scary thought to think about if nobody had any morals or values at all. I picture the kind of world that you see in movies where everything is black and there are fires and black buildings and empty streets everywhere. There would also be graffiti on all of the buildings and kids would be running around with guns. It's pretty creepy really.

Basically the moral of the story is ethics and values are very important to our society, however small. Even if there's not much of them, some is still infinitely better than none at all.

Journal 10

Science vs. Religion is a very touchy topic in many different circles for obvious reasons. Although there are some religious people who are also prominent scientists, most of the time science and religion do not exactly go hand in hand.

When someone is a firm believer and user of the laws of science, these people tend to have very factual and intellectual minds. I would say that most scientific people are probably a type green or gold personality. They strictly follow the rules of science set before them and they think that everything that exists should be able to be explained scientifically somehow. For this reason, they have a very hard time believing that anything such as religion could possibly be real. To them if it cannot be scientifically proved then it must not exist.

Now on the other side of the spectrum are the religious types who live their lives based upon faith. They would be classified as more of a blue or an orange personality in my opinion. They do not always have to have cold hard facts to believe in something. For this reason, if they are able to believe that there is something in the world that is not meant to be explained but is to be believed, they might find themselves thinking that there are other things that can not be explained by science either. Because they do not believe in the explanation and logic of everything, these people will often butt heads with those who are of scientific minds.

Of course there can also be a happy medium. Some believe that there are ways to in fact prove that God exists or at least disprove that evolution happened on its own. When I was in middle school I read a book about a firm believer in evolution changing their ways and believing in God purely based upon scientific grounds. For example, the moon moves a quarter of an inch further away from the earth every year. If one is to assume this has happened consistently since the beginning of time, the earth could not possibly be as old as scientists claim because the moon would have been touching the earth at some point.

Puritan Presentation

Journal 9

I think personally that organized religion causes more problems then it solves. Even personally, as a Christian, I still think that religion pushes people away rather than pulling them in. People in generally do not like to be told what they have to do or what they have to say, and they do not like being told what they cannot do either. So when you bring people into a religion and you tell them all of those things, their human reaction is going to be to rebel against the constraints and, therefore, the religion.

It has been scientifically proven that there is a place in our brains that is naturally wired to seek a higher power. Some part of us just naturally wants to believe that there is something bigger beyond what we can see. With as much trouble as there is in the world it is natural for humans to seek a way to believe that somebody who knows what they are doing is over it all and it will all be okay. This inborn instinct drives people towards other people who also believe in a higher power. Unfortunately, once the label religion is placed on what the people are doing, that is when they tend to want to get out.

The best form of belief and carrying out the requirements of said belief is in doing it yourself instead of doing it because people tell you to. In my opinion, although the church that I go to classifies me as a Christian, one should approach faith as a personal decision rather than a requirement.

Journal 8

I thought that the clip "The Impotence of Proofreading" was an ingenius way to get the point of how important proofreading is across. A lot of the times people think that proofreading is not really necessary because even if they make a mistake here or there they will just lose a couple points and be done with it. The thing that people do not realize though is that you could get yourself into a really embarrassing situation if you do not proofread. There are so many possibilites for you to type out something embarrassing by accident and not ever realize it because the word you type is an actual word and therefore not something that the computer would detect.

It was also smart of the clip creator to use funny examples of what could go wrong to keep the viewer engaged. It's a lot easier to watch a video that is trying to explain to you some kind of important topic about writing when it is actually something interesting. Most videos of handouts we get that talk about proofreading and all of that stuff are so boring they kinda make me wanna scream a little bit. But this one I paid attention to the whole time--okay, granted it lasted like five minutes and that does not take that much of an attention span-- but still, I actually absorbed the point that they were trying to get across, and that is the whole point of the clip anyway, is it not?

Another reason you should make sure you proofread is because you never know when your idiot friends are going to type something they think is funny into your paper and you won't catch it. Usually they probably think you will catch it and aren't actually trying to make you look like an idiot, but sometimes that happens anyway. And chances are your teacher is not going to find it anywhere near as amusing as your friend did. (Ahem, Jesus/Paco/Matt)

Journal 7

The only superstitions that I really follow are not a typical superstition at all. I am kind of weird because the superstitions I believe in are ones I've made up in my own head not ones that are typical such as your black cat or broken mirror superstitions.

One of the "superstitions" that I follow is I always set my alarm clock for waking up in the morning on an odd number that does not end in five. For example, I usually wake up at 6:41, 6:43, 6:47, 6:49, or 6:51. I do not remember why exactly I started with this but I think it was because for a certain amount of time for some reason I noticed that whenever I woke up on an even minute I had a bad day and when I woke up on and odd one I had a good day. Now, obviously, since I wake up on an odd number every day and it is impossible for me to have a great day every day, I am smart enough to realize that there is no way the number I wake up on can affect my day. Nevertheless, I still hang onto that pattern or quirk, if you will, of waking up on an odd number. The thought of setting my clock for an uneven number just makes me uneasy somehow.

I guess the only other superstitions I have would be good superstitions in a way. Basically I believe that 13 and 34 are my lucky numbers. Thirty-four has been my basketball number since sixth grade and it was my mom's all the way through high school so it is special to me even if it is not necessarily lucky. The number thirteen has always just intrigued me because everybody thinks it is unlucky but I happen to like it. So instead of avoiding it like some people to do I tend to gravitate towards it. I even purposefully sit in seat thirteen on the bus whenever I can, and I'll have you know nothing bad has ever happened to me in seat thirteen.

Journal 6

There are a lot of possible repercussions for blaming someone else for something they did not do. One example is that you will be find out. If the situation is something complicated it is very difficult to cover your tracks and have all of your bases covered, especially to the point where you cannot be found out if the person you blame gets really mad for being blamed. In some cases if it is not that big of a deal the person you blame might just let it go and accept responsibility because it is not something that really matters. But if it's a situation where it's something that they really do not wanna be blamed for then you could run into a lot of problems, especially if the person you blame is not exactly a pushover.

One major thing that you could lose from blaming someone else for something you did is all credibility that you might hold with the person you lie to. For example if I lied to my mom and blamed something I did on my brother and she figured it out then it would be very difficult for me to every gain her trust back. And if somewhere down the road another instance happened and this time he really was the one to blame and not me, it might be difficult for me to convince her that that time it really was not my fault.

Another reason is that you never know how the other person is going to be punished for what you blamed them for. If you blame someone for something and they get seriously reprimanded for it, if you have any trace of compassion in you whatsoever it is going to bother you as you witness what happens to them. The guilt will start to eat away at you until you cannot stand it anymore and you have to confess your guilt. And more times then not when you confess your guilt the person you lied to is going to be significantly more angry with you for lying to them then they would have been if you just told the truth in the first place.

Journal 5

Unfortunately I think that taking away Facebook is a pretty good idea. I don't agree as much with taking away cell phones because when you take away a teenager's cell phone you take away a very important tool they probably use for more than just keeping in contact with their friends. These days cell phones are used for everything. I personally use my cell phone for keeping in contact with my friends for social reasons but also for getting in contact when I have problems with my homework. With the difficult load of classes that I have these days, that kind of situation arises pretty often. I also use my calculator for simple calculations when I am doing my homework and do not need a scientific calculator to do them. Since I always have my phone it is convenient to just use it instead of locating my calculator.

I also use my phone as a GPS at times. I have a maps app that enables me to search a certain address and it tells me how to get there and how long it is going to take me.

I also use my phone to look up anything and everything I need to look up. It's very handy for research if I do not have a computer nearby to be able to look anything up on. My parents also find themselves often asking me to look something up for them that they needed.

Also they clearly need to get into contact with me a lot because I have after-school sports and schedule changes and last-minute decisions that I have to run by them. If they took my phone away they would not be able to do that. Overall it would end up being just as much of an inconvenience and punishment to them as it was to me.

I think taking away Facebook is the best option. I am constantly on Facebook on my phone and I would feel really weird if I went several days without being on Facebook. Another smart punishment is not allowing me to go out and spend time with my friends on the weekends.

Journal 4

For the most part I actually really hate going on long car trips. My family does not have the greatest track record as far as long car trips are concerned. Usually we all end up fighting and screaming followed by not talking at all. The problem is that there are so many people in my family. There are six of us, obviously four being kids. And when you decide to go on a sixteen hour trip to Florida with four kids you are going to run into some problems as the trip progresses. First of all, about every ten minutes somebody new decides they have to go to the bathroom. Also there is the question of everybody being thirsty and hungry and tired all at different times. Somebody will want to watch a movie while somebody else wants to go to sleep and complains that the noise is too much for them while they are trying to sleep.

Then there is the question of who gets to sit in the front seat and the back seat of the car. Everybody always wants to sit in the front seat because supposedly it is the best place to be. But then those who are banished to the back are mad that they are back there so they get revenge by kicking the seat of the person sitting in front of them. Then, of course, comes the yelling for mom to tell them to stop and then mom gets mad which makes dad mad which makes the entire car corrupt into a huge angry fury. It's a good time.

I think the only thing long car trips have done for me is make me realize that movies lie and they are not in fact bonding experiences. Nobody learns anything like they do in movies and everybody does not have a newfound respect for each other at the end. On the contrary, when you get back everybody is mad and hates each other's guts and it's just an all-around good time. When I grow up and have a family we are definitely taking a plane so we can actually at least tolerate each other for at least the beginning of our vacation.

Journal 3

It would obviously be incredibly scary to be held hostage in any form, but I think in a way it could also be fun. When I get scared I become somewhat of a smart alack and that would probably get me into trouble in that sort of case, but maybe I would get so annoying they would just decide to let me go. Or they would kill me. Then there is that.


Truthfully I think I would be pretty scared if I got kidnapped. I'm pretty good in high pressure situations though so I think I would end up coming with something. It would probably be something crazy that only had like a .01% chance of working but at least it would be something. I'd like to think I wouldn't be so scared that I'd just sit around doing nothing. I would also like to think that I wouldn't just submit to whatever my captor wanted me to do and go along with whatever they said. I'm not built to take orders very well. I would like to think I would hold onto my beliefs through everything even if I was tortured or whatever.

There is a quote by Eleanor Roosevelt that says that you never know how strong a woman is until you put her in hot water. I have always found this quote incredibly insightful and I think that it would definitely apply in this instance. Because the truth is, no matter how I think I would respond in a high-pressure situation such as being kidnapped, you can never truly know until the situation actually happens to you. For all you know it could end up going the exact opposite way of what you expected. Maybe I would be have more clarity and be braver than I think in that situation, or perhaps I would be more of a coward and instead ashamed of the way I would handle it. Who really knows?

Journal 2

Once upon a time there was a bear and a squirrel. They both lived in the same woods and knew of one another but they never saw each other or dealt with one another because the bear lived in a cave and the squirrel lived in a tree. This system worked for both of them and they never crossed paths until one day in the middle of summer.

The friendly bear was roaming around in the woods when he came across the tree that the squirrel lived in. Up in the branches there was a huge beehive full of honey and once the bear saw it he began to climb the tree in pursuit of the hive. Now the squirrel who lived in the tree had no interest in the beehive because he did not particularly like honey, and he had started to become annoyed by the constant buzzing that the bees in the beehive were always making. Still, though, the squirrel in question was a selfish squirrel and when he saw that the bear was in pursuit of the honey in his tree he began to get very angry. Soon he went to his secret stash of acorns and various nuts and began throwing them at the bear as he climbed the tree. The bear, of course, became very upset with the acorns being thrown at his head and ceased climbing the tree. Although he knew that the squirrel did not want the honey, he still went about his way searching for another beehive for his afternoon snack.

Not too long later, the tree that the squirrel lived in was cut down by men looking for lumber in the woods. Without anywhere to go, the squirrel went off in search of another place to stay because all the other trees were already occupied by squirrel. Normally the other squirrels would have welcomed him with open arms, but this squirrel had a reputation for not being too nice to the other squirrels, so none of them welcomed him very kindly.

Soon it was dusk and the squirrel still had no place to sleep for the night. Desperate for shelter, he stepped into a cave that he happened to come across through the last rays of light. When he walked in he saw that it was the home of the bear that he had so selfishly sent away when he wanted the honey from the squirrel's tree. The bear recognized the squirrel as well and was about to send him away, but he then realized that this was his opportunity to be the bigger woodland animal. So the bear graciously showed hospitality and allowed the squirrel to stay in his cave until he could find a new home. Because he was so moved by the hospitality of the bear, the squirrel was forever changed, and as he went out looking for a new home he spread the story of how kind the bear had been to him. And from that day forward the squirrel never again turned away someone that he was in any way capable of helping.

Journal 1

We actually learned about Native American culture in American History this morning. Apparently the first Native Americans came here around ten thousand years ago over a land bridge from Russia to Alaska. They started off as hunter-gatherers, and they hunted woolly mammoths for most of their food. Eventually though the mammoths died off and they were forced to start hunting other things such as fish in order to survive. Then they learned how to plant crops and created villages because of the agricultural revolution. Each new civilization brought something new that the civilization before them did not have. First they began forming small villages. After that, because their cities were growing so large they began developing systems of government. Some of them created giant buildings called pueblos that were immensely large because they were wealthy due to trade. Eventually though, they wore out the land and they experienced severe drought so they all disappeared and their giant pueblos were left deserted. Next, a people called the Mayans developed a calendar that we still use today. The civilizations also began fighting each other for territory and goods and there was a lot of war. Also, some groups would keep their prisoners and sacrifice them alive as gifts to their gods in order to appease their anger and keep them from destroying them. They believed in multiple gods and each one was usually a god of some sort of element of nature or some sort of emotional feeling that they were in charge of. Because of their massive amount of gods they had to do a lot of sacrificing. The Mayan calendar is also the calendar that supposedly predicted the end of the world to be in 2012 because it is the end of their calendar.

Eventually the Native Americans were driven further and further west by the white men who were colonizing the New World and they were forced to live in reservations. As a result their numbers dwindled until today there are not many pure blood Native Americans left at all.

Symbols in Summer Reading

There were a few symbols in the summer reading that particularly stood out to me.

In Grapes of Wrath there were many symbols. Specifically, the birth of the stillborn child at the end of the movie seemed to me to be a general symbol of all of the suffering and pain that the Joad family had to endure, and it also stood for all the other families who had their own suffering to deal with. There were many Godly symbols in the novel as well such as the ending scene in which Rose of Sharon symbolizes the Virgin Mary caring for the dead Jesus. Also, the flooding in the final chapter reminded me of the flood that occurred with Noah and the Ark in the Old Testament of the Bible.

In Cather in the Rye I observed just in general that the main character stood for the teenager's struggle to find his place in the world. His story contained many of the problems that kids of every shape and size face on a daily basis trying to figure out what their role in the world is supposed to be.

In Old Man and the Sea I did not at first see a lot of symbols. Obviously I saw the reeling in of the big fish as a symbol of perseverance in the face of hardship and never giving up no matter what. After discussing in class how the old man was meant to represent Jesus, everything really started clicking in my head. In the way the old man is constantly struggling with the huge weight of reeling in that large fish that constantly is fighting against him, I saw the way Jesus is constantly struggling to bring the people that he loves to him as they constantly try to push him away. Also in the way the sharks came and bit chunks out of the side of the fish he worked so hard to real in I saw how different things and distraction in the world takes away groups of the people he is trying to real in, or you could also read it as the fish being one individual soul he is trying to save and the sharks are the distractions that are constantly pulling parts of you into different directions.

Horror of Prison in Grapes of Wrath

It is a scary thought thinking about how crazy it would be to be locked up in a jail for years like Tom is discussing in chapter sixteen of Grapes of Wrath. Although they discussed earlier that it is hard getting out of prison because you are so used to being there and the regularity of all the amenities that are provided to you, that does not mean it is as nice as that description makes it seem.

Although eventually you get used to the life of being a prisoner and having every day mapped out for you the exact same way, it cannot be an easy road to get to that point where you don't care anymore. There would be a point on that road to not caring that would seem as though you would never make it through. Some of them even go crazy to some extent as displayed in the following passage:

"Maybe I'm kinda stir-nuts. I'll tell ya about it sometime maybe. Ya see, its just sompin you wanta know. Kinda interestin'. But I got a kind a funny ideas the bes' thing'd be if i forget about it fora while. Maybe in a little while it won't be that way. RIght now when I think about it my guts gets all droppy an' nasty feelin'. Look here, Al, I'll tell ya one thing - the jail house i jus' a kind a way a drivin' a guy slowly nuts. See? An' they go nuts, an' you see 'em an' hear 'em an' pretty soon you don' know if you're nuts or not. When they get to screamin' in the night sometimes you think it's you doin' the screamin' - and sometimes it is."

This would be the hardest part of being in prison I think. It would not be the demons of living with whatever you did to get in, it would be to deal with the demons of the prison itself and all the people around you dealing with their own personal demons.

Faith Restored in Grapes of Wrath

Chapter fifteen of Grapes of Wrath was incredibly touching, so much so that it once again restored a little piece of faith in the goodness of humanity in general.

At first as the story went on about Mae and how much she had and how much she turned up her nose at the poor people who came into her diner begging for some kind of mercy, I was incredibly disgusted by her attitude. She was so taken by those truck drivers and the way they acted even though the jokes they told were inappropriate. It was horrible to me how she could find those poor, respectful people who just happened to be in a bad way disgusting and disgraceful while these men who had plenty and could be rude she surveyed reverently as if they had ever done anything worthy of her respect.

Then some of the poor people entered and she put on a show for the truck drivers, not showing any mercy and being stubborn about doing them one small favor. The man was clearly an honest man who did his best to be humble and respectful, and he was not asking for anything for free but just simply to be allowed to buy some bread to feed his family. Finally she allowed tem to buy a fifteen cent loaf of bread for ten cents. Then, in a moment that could practically move a reader to tears, she surveyed his poor, bedraggled children eying the candy with a sort of reverence that something so wonderful could even exist. The father, seeing this pitiful display, aasked Mae if the candies were penny candies. She quietly replied that they were two for a penny, and he bought one. Not until they elft did the reader realize that the candies were not in fact two for a penny, they were five cents apiece. And as this one blessing that she bestowed on the stunningly grateful children set in, the reader's faith in the goodness of people was once again restored.

We Instead of I in Grapes of Wrath

The author has figured out the way to fix the problem of the great depression in chapter fourteen of Grapes of Wrath. I know that sounds ridiculous and extreme because of course no one man could have perfectly found a way to solve something that great minds must have been working overtime to puzzle out themselves. No, I am not saying he had a quick fix to eliminate all the turmoil and trouble of that time. what I am saying is that he took a good hard look at all sides of the people during that time and realized the idea that would save them all. And that iea is that allof the people need to start thinking as more of a 'we' than an 'I'. This means that those people who have a lot can give of the plenty that they have to those who do not have what they need. I know this sounds like a ridiculous concept to those whohave much because that would just be ch arity and why should they give of what they have? Well, that answer is more shielded than the other. That answer is that those who have much need those who do not to keep their land alive. They need the heart and soul of the tenant farmers to keep the world from turning into an impersonal place where machines do what a man used to do with a sense of pride and dedication. Those with plenty will realize that if they can stop suspecting their fellow people and extend a hand of friendship and teamwork towards them. As the following quote states, the key is to make things more of a team effort.

"..For two men are not as lonely and perplexed as one. And from this first 'we' there grows a still more dangerous thing. 'I have a little food' plus 'I have none.' If rom this problem the sum is 'We have a little food,' the thing is on its way, the movement has direction.

Hope in Struggle in Grapes of Wrath

Chapter fourteen of Grapes of Wrath particularly struck me in its truth. The very beginning paragraph is talking about how the western states are growing nervous with all the pressure of the millions of people migrating there to seek refuge and fulfillment. It seems to be a huge burden as the population multiplies and the land fills with people desperate for help. But still, the chapter discusses how it is in these things that we place our hope. For as long as there are people out there striving to do what needs to be done to advance the world, everything will be okay as the following passage indicates:

"For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his accomplishments. This you may say of man - when theories change and crash, when schools, philosophies, when narrow dark alleys of thought, national, religious, economic, grow and disintegrate, man reaches, stumbles forward, painfully, mistakenly sometimes. Having stepped forward, he may slip back, but only half a step, never a full step back. This you may say and know it and know it. This you may know when the bombs plummet out of the black planes on the market place, when prisoners are stuck like pigs, when the crushed bodies drain filthily in the dust. You may know it in this way. If the step were not being taken, if the stumbling forward ache were not alive, the boms would not fall, the throats would not be cut. Dread the time when the bombs stop falling while the bombers live - for every bomb is proof that the spirit has not died."

And although not many people think of war and all the unspeakable things that are detailed above as good things, the author makes a good poitn when he talks about how all of these horrible things are necessary evils in that they mean that men are striving to take steps forward. And that is incredibly important.

Religion in Grapes of Wrath

Although they may at times seem sacrilegious, I think there is something beautiful in the blatantly honest "prayers" that Jim Casy tells when asked to do so. He does not try to cover up his true thoughts with pretty words that mean nothing to him. He just says what is on his heart with brutal honesty and forgets everything else. That is the beautiful things about him no l onger just trying to please people and God with nice words; he says what is really going on in his mind.

Most people try to talk people's lives up at their funeral so that they look like better people. I find Jim Casy's funeral speech a lot more refreshing:

"Casy said solemnly, 'This here ol' man jus' lived a life an' jus' died out of it. I don' k now whether he was good ro bad, but that don't matter much. He was alive, an' that's what matters. An' now he's dead, an' that don't matter. Heard a fella tell a poem one time, an' he says "All that lives is holy." Got to thinkin', an' purty soon it means more than the words says. An' I wouldn' pray for a ol' fella that's dead. He's awright. He got a job to do, but it's all laid out for 'im an' theres on'y one way to do it. But us, we got a job to do, an' they's a thousan' ways, an' we don' know which one to take. An' if I was to pray, it'd be for the folks that don' know which way to turn. Grampa here, he got the easy straight. An' now cover 'im up and let 'im get to his work.

Being a Christian myself I am under the impression that God much prefers when you talk to him in a streamline of thoughts like that anyway. He would rather know you and what is on your mind then hear you drone on about things that mean nothing to you with words that are simply memorized or used for show. So without even realizing, Jim Casy has stumbled across something very important, and that is being in a more personal relationship with his savior.

Ma and Granma's Strength in Grapes of Wrath

Granma put on a very brave face and just kept pushing on when Grampa died in chapter thirteen of Grapes of Wrath. though she had just lost the companion she had had by her side for decades and raised a family with, she was the picture of grace and dignity as she walked out of the tent that he died in, and she held her headhigh as she knelt to be surrounded by her family. Through her the lesson can be learned about showing a brave face in the midst of tragedy.

Ma, too, was extremely brave. She had to go lay out her own father for burial. She had to accept the fact that this man who had raised her and been strong and wise for as ldong as she could remember was gone, and that was all on top of all the stress and hardship that was already going on in her life as it was. This display of strength and courage in spite of everything is very admirable and awe-inspiring. When the woman who was helping her prepare her father for burial commented on how well her mother was holding up she replied:

"'Why, she's so old,' said Ma, 'maybe she don't even rightly know what happened. Maybe she won't really know for quite a while. Bvesides, us folks takes a prid eholdin' in. My pa used to say, "anybody can break down. It takes a man not to." We always try to hold in.'

Through this chapter you can really see how Ma and Granma come from the same stock. They are both incredibly brave in the face of tragedy, if not in denial. They continue to push forward even after they lose their father and husband who, although he fell out of the seat of power and moved on to simply giving advice at times and just mainly voicing random opinions about things at other times, he was still the head patriarch of the family and they all still lived on the example of strength and power that he represented, as you can see from the above quote. Losing Grampa was a devastating blow to the Joads who only wanted to keep their family together, yet they showed amazing gifts as they pushed forward despite it all.

Morals in Grapes of Wrath

The Joads prove time and time again in Grapes of Wrath that being kind to others will set off a chan reaction and make them treat you kindly as well.

In the hard times of the depression nobody felt that they could trust anybody else because everybody was paranoid and down on their luck and other people posed too much of a threat. So many people laid down their morals and just did whatever they wanted to do instead of what they had been raised to know was right that nobody really seemed to be trustworthy anymore. The Joads, though, always held onto their ho nor code and never gave up on being the upstanding people they were raised to be, and when people they met along the way realized this they were so refreshed that they immediately responded in kind.

When the Joads met the down on his luck man at the service station he was not very friendly to them at alll. Immediately Joad got defensive and angry and lashed out at the man. However, he soon corrected himself and treated the man with kindness and understanding beccause he knew they ewre in the same situation. Immediately the man started treating them nicer, and when their dog got run over by a car he offered to give it a proper burial for them. Their extension of kindness paid off for them in a great way.

Next they stoopped on the road for the night and found another family already there. The fmaily surveyed them warily and did not seem to be friendly. Then the Joads wer ekind enough to ask then permission to park next to theme ven though they did not own the land. Stunned at this display of consideration, the family welcomed them in and took care of them. When grampa was sick they took him in and did all they could. The Joads received all of this just because they stuck by their code of respect for other human beings in the face desperation.

Lack of Action in Grapes of Wrath

Joad makes a very good point in chapter thirteen of Grapes of Wrath when he meets the old, wrinkly man who runs the service station that the family stops at for gas.

First the old man starts moaning and complaining about how nobody with any money or anything stops at his service station to get gas. He tells them how everybody either wants to beg for some gas for charity or they want to trade some of the only items they have for gas. He goes on and on for a very long tiem and seems so full of complaining that he cannot possibly be happy. He asks again adn again what the world is coming to. that is all he wants to know is what the world is coming to. The following passage is his discussion with Casy and Joad:

"Casy said, 'I been walking aroun in the country. Ever'body's askin' that. What we comin' to? Seems to me we don't never come to nothin'. Always on the way. Always goin' and goin'. Why don't folks thinka bout that? They's movement now. People moving. We know why, an' we know how. Movin' 'cause they want sompin better'n what they got. An' thats the on'y way they'll ever get it. It's bein' hurt thatm akes folks mad to fightin'. I been walkin aroun' the country, an' hearin' foks talk like you.'
The fat man pumped gasoline and the neeedle turned in the pump dial, recording the amount. 'Yeah, but what's it comin' to? That's what I want ta know.'
Tom broke in irritably, 'Well you ain't never gonna know. Casy tries to tell ya an' you jest ast the same thing over. I seen fellas like you before. You ain't askin' no thin'; you're jus' singin' a kinda song - "what we comin to?"'

And that is a very true statement. Everybody always wants to fill the void by saying something like "what we comin' to?" but hardly anybody ever really wants to know the answer. They simply want to act as though they care and shake their heads and not doing anything about it.

Living Step by Step in Grapes of Wrath

The author puts a couple references in the Grapes of Wrath to just having to take life as it ocmes. Whenever there is a problem to be faced or a mountain to be climbed, it is best not to measture the distance you have to go but to take everything one step at a time. If you do it in this way it keeps you from getting discouraged too easily with the great length that lays before you.

One example of taking life step by step is in Joad's description of the life he led when he was in prison. When you are faced with a sentence of multiple years youc annot possibly look at the sentence as a while without losing heart. It will seem to be an impossible length of time to endure wihtout being in civilization among other people. However, if you take the sentence one day at a time and tell yoursel fif you can only justmake it through that one day then you will be fine, it is a lot more to bear. Anybody can take something for a day at a time.

The author used the previously discussed example as a reason for taking things one day ata time, but most people cannot sympathize with the actual feeling of being imprisoned so there is also another example. This example is more universal and is from the advice of Ma Joad. As they are on the road she too takes everything one day ata t ime. She tells Joad how impossible it is for her to take on the whole idea of what they are trying to do at one time, as shown in the following passage:

"'ain't you thinkin what's it gonna be like when we get there? Ain't you scared it won't be nice like we thought?'
'No,' she said quickly. 'No, I ain't. You can't do that. I can't do that. It's too much- livin too many lives. Up ahead they's a thousan' lives we might live, but when it comes, it'll on'y be oen. If I go ahead on all of 'em, it's too much. You got to vile ahead 'cause you're soy oung, but - it's just the road goin' by for me.'"

Courage and Faith in Grapes of Wrath

Two lessons that can be thoroughly taught by the tenant farmers in Grapes of Wrath are courage and faith. During the beginnign of the novel the reader is under the impression that all of their faith is foolishness. Time and time again th epeople who were in the position to help them out or do them a kind turn instead insisted on doing the opposite and using their compromised position for their own gain. For a while the reader remained hopeless and slowly lost faith in the goodness of human kind.

But when all hope is lost, the author insterts a small seed of hope in the darkness. The story is told that there was one poor family who did not have the money to buy a car to drive them all the way to California. Instead, they took all that they had and crafted a makshift trailer and placed it on the side of the raod on route 66, hoping and praying that some kind soul would come along adn help them out. Sure enough, as unlikely as it is, a sedan cam ealong and picked up taht family and hitched their trailer to their own car and pulled that entire family of ten all the way to California. Not only did they pull them, but they fed them on the journey as well. They truly were a miracle for that faithful family. It almost seems to be a game of luck whether or not these desperate families will make it to California against all odds. As a quote from the book said, "the people in flight from the terror behind-strange things happen to them, some bitterly cruel and some so beautiful that the faith is refired forever."

But whether or not any of these people received such an amazing blessign as the one above, these people all exhibited amazing courage leaving behind the only land that they knew to begin the rough journey to finding a new life.