The Conclusion

   Throughout the year I have done so many blogs, so many that I didn't quite realize it until I had looked back upon all of my past assignments. It's a weird feeling that I won't be doing this anymore, it'll be a huge load off of my shoulders, but in a weird and messed up way that I don't understand, I'm gonna miss doing the weekly blog. I'm gonna miss writing about the latest motifs and themes that have come up in my book or how though some obscure way they relate to real life and how they all have some deep, important message that needs to revealed. I'm gonna miss all of the little miscellaneous projects that I have stayed up late on Friday nights doing, praying for a good grade. In a way it has all become a part of me.
   I have to say the one of my favorite blog assignments this year has also been one of the most recent.  I loved writing about my experiences with poetry.  It is, without a doubt, one of my favorite things about English.  Another favorite was when I wrote about my 'chain' during our Great Expectations unit. When I wrote that blog it helped me to realize just how big swimming is in my life. If I had never joined that swim team I would not be the person I am today.  All because f that fateful day, I met people that have become some of my greatest friends, and I am sure that we will be friends for a lifetime.
   One of my least favorite blog assignments was the Animal Farm visual project. I didn't like doing my art project on the computer.  It did help me to become more tech savvy though and it was beneficial.
  I think that in the long run my blog has really helped to define me as a writer and has helped me to do more than just write, but realize things about myself that I hadn't really known until I had written them down. As Bono once said, "Who's to say where the wind will take you." I don't know where I'll end up but I know that this will have helped to prepare me for what is to come. And so I publish my last post. Thank God.

A Memorable Assignment

   Well, I have to say that my favorite assignment this year has got to be this one.  I feel proud of the work I have done on it and the reading I did.  It was a challenging read, mostly because of the fact that I only really got a chance to read after all my homework at ten o'clock at night.  I worked out a schedule that would leave me enough time at the end to finish my visual project and my literary piece.
   One of the things things that I feel most proud of about this project is my visual aid.  I worked long and hard over it and I ended up with a painting of a storm-tossed ship battling for survival.  I feel that I have improved greatly since I did a painting for my Slaughterhouse 5 presentation.

Poetry

   When I hear the word poetry I always think of my eighth grade English class where we did tons of poetry.  Personally poetry is my favorite unit in English.  When we were learning about poetry last year we were required to write about four original poems.  You had do a haiku, a limerick, and two free verse poems...I did four free verse.  After that I felt inspired and wrote more.  I now have a mini booklet of poetry that I have written.
   I feel that poetry is extremely important in our lives.  If you can respect poetry then you can respect an other's thoughts and feelings for poetry is a way to let all of that out and let people know how you feel.  When I hear the word poetry I think of an outburst of emotion and feeling and thought and everything that has been bottled up inside.  That is why poetry is important.

Conflict in Romeo and Juliet

   There are many types of conflict in Romeo and Juliet, but one of the more subtle ones is the internal conflict all the characters face against themselves.  Romeo and Juliet must battle their consciences every time they decide to defy their parents and see each other.  When Romeo meets with Juliet under the cover of darkness he tells her that his name is an enemy to himself for it is her enemy.
   This conflict is present in my life all the time, maybe not in the same form as in the play but it is still a battle against my will and body.  Whenever I am in a race and I start to tire I have to fight it out against my own body and carry on.  I have to take my mind somewhere else and only think of what is ahead.  You can never let your tired lungs win the fight, you must battle and win against your muscles.

Romeo and Juliet = Edward and Bella

   It took me quite awhile to think of something that would really fit into this blog.  Finally it came to me. New Moon of the twilight saga features two people who have met and fallen in love even though they should not be together.   I immediately ran to my computer to blog about it...then i read the assignment and noticed how it had already mentioned the twilight books.  That was a little irritating, I thought it was a pretty good idea until I found out that Mrs. Gilman stole it from me!  Oh well, I'm going to write about it anyway.  So in New Moon Edward hears from a friend that Bella had gone cliff diving, mistakenly though he thinks that she committed suicide.  He then travels to Italy to anger the world's most powerful vampires so that they will kill him.  When Bella hears about this she decides to travel to Italy to save him, in the end all is resolved and nobody dies a tragic death because of some stupid mistake, unlike Romeo and Juliet.

Connecting with Romeo and Juliet

   One thing that I notice in Juliet's family life is that her parents are exceptionally controlling whereas Romeo's parents appear to be more relaxed and laid-back.  When you read throughout the first few acts Romeo's parents seem to be more concerned with how his health.  When Juliet is first introduced to the reader, her mother is trying to wed her off to a man she hardly knows.  I can relate to Romeo and Juliet when their parents don't always understand them and that the only people they can talk to are their closest friends.
   I think that reading at home and then going over it in class is extremely effective.  It helps me to realize if I have been pronouncing a word wrong or if I don't quite understand the sentence because of the wording.  I do feel that I'm reaching my goals and that the resources I'm using really are helping.

Wrapping things up with a message

I felt that the main message in Great Expectations was to not have regrets.  Charles Dicken constantly shows that as you live your life you don't want to do anything that you will regret later on.  This is a universal experiance for everyone. Everyone knows what it's like to have done something and regretted it afterwords.  You realize what hass happened and, if you're a true person, only wish to right the wrong.

Thoughts on Reading

   Over all I enjoyed reading Great Expectations.  Once I had finished it gave me a feeling of accomplishment and ease.  Reading did turn out to be a bit of a stress on all of my other work though, finding the time to read and annotate usually led to late nights of sitting in my bed with my lonesome self trying to stay awake to finish the last few chapters and find some piece of information worthy of one of my awesome sticky notes.  I felt good knowing that I didn't need any help solving any of the mysteries from spark notes or people who had read the book before.  In the end I think I enjoyed Dickens style of writing and may try some of his other novels.

   My nightly reading would usually consist of finishing all of my other extremely boring homework while trying to procrastinate and distract myself from doing any form of work.  After this was done I would go and get a snack, change into my pajamas, climb into bed and start my reading.  Usually I was mostly caught up so I only had about twenty pages to read.  Those pages sometimes seemed like the longest I had ever read at times.  Eventually I would finish though at around 10:00 and at this point I could rest my tired eyes and get ready to do it all over again the next day.

   Boy...I cannot wait for Romeo and Juliet.

Connected Photo

I felt that this photo really connects to GReat Expectations because in the novel there really isn't anything that Pip cannot do.  This was the Album cover for U2's latest album, No Line on the Horizon.  I feel that this is vaery symbolic and has a lot of meaning in it.

Making connections

I think that Great Expectations and To Kill a Mockingbird are very much alike.  Through the main characters real life experiences are shown and true human nature is exposed such as judgement and fear of the unknown.  Both authors convey that people are imperfect, but that you should not judge them for their views or how they choose to live.
Both Pip and Scout go through many challenges.  Pip does not know how to use his money or how to treat ohers like a gentleman. Scout doesn't know how to treat African-Americans.

The Second Stage

   During the second stage in Great Expectations, Pip travels to London where he meets his new roomate Herbert Pocket who turns out to be the pale young gentleman that Pip fought years ago in Mrs. Havisham's garden.  This man teaches Pip how to become a gentleman.
   One of the main motifs in this part of the book is becoming a gentleman.  When Pip first meets Herbert he asks Herbert to tell him if he uses any impolite manners.  Herbert teaches him what it means to be a gentleman.

My Chain

   He is referring to the moment he entered the gate at Miss Havisham's house. That was the moment that he met Estelle which started a long chain of events that leads him to where he is now.  Because of this he realizes just how 'coarse and common' he is. This makes him feel ashamed of who he is.  In the following chapters Pip becomes resentful of how poor his family is and starts to realize that maybe he doesn't want to be a common blacksmith like Joe.  He becomes extremely self concious and at the end of the night after he is apprenticed to Joe, he thinks to himslef that just maybe he won't have any fun now.
   The first link in my chain was my first day on a real swim team.  I started to realize my dream of becoming a real swimmer.  To this day I have never had regrets about that decision.  That day led to me making varsity on our high school team and meeting a whole new group of people who were just like me.  I would never have met some of the people who will now be life long friends.

My Question

What I really want to know about is how Pip's convict was able to give another man the file that Pip had given him.  Would The file have been confiscated when he was locked away again?  If he had the file, why didn't he just break out again!?!  I'm confused by this.

Group Essay

Hello fellow group members.  As of now I have not changed any of my quotes or commentary so you won't have to worry about repetition.  Do you guys think I need to add anything else?  Once you post your comments I will critique them for you.

Dishonesty

   Humor and dishonesty play a major role in this play.  The epigrams are all very insightful into real life and how ridiculous it really is.  It is also funny how these epigrams are said.  They are almost philosophically written. Wilde also seems to enjoy poking fun at marriage, education, and religion. He talks about how marriage is more of a business than a matter of love.  He also tells of how religion is more of a requirement than an act of faith.  Throughout the entire play Wilde talks about the importance of being earnest and how important it is for the characters to be named Earnest.  Throughout the play a common theme is the pursuit of pleasure.  Whether it be bunburying or lying about who you are, all of the characters are trying to make themselves as happy as possible without thought to any of the consequences.
   Oscar Wilde is trying to say that dishonesty is never a good thing.  It will always lead to misfortune, except for in this case where everyone fell in love and ended up being married.

Project Evaluations

Kyra and Amaya:  Movie
   They conveyed the message of the novel effectively.  I found that they used all of the most important scenes and incorperated them into the movie.

Porter:  Comic Strip
   I feel that the strip did not contain enough information, that it left a lot of the story out.  It only showed that they were oppresed by the humans and then the pigs rose to power.

Nick:  Picture
   All that was done was a paragraph about a picture that was obtained from the internet.  This could have been done within minutes.  There was very little work required.

Britta:  Poem
   I thought that the poem was very creative and required a lot of detail and hard work.  A lot of work was put into this project.

Aaron:  Picture
   I thought that this project was good. It could have used a little more work due to the fact that everything was just copied and then pasted.

Kady:  Movie
   I thought that this movie was very good.  A lot of work was put into it and it shows.

Adrienne:  Movie
   I thought that a little more work could have been put into this movie.

Daryl:  Picture
   I thought that this picture was quite interesting.  It shows how the story moves along in a different view.

Emma:  Picture
   I thought that this was a creative project and that it showed all of the literary elements from the novel.


I still stand by my project. I put a good amount of work into it and I think that it shows the elements of the story through the charecters and their actions.

Animal Farm Comic Strip