Weekly Blog posts |
Today, in class, we read and annotated poems about growing up as a woman. With three different poems about females, each of them led to the question, what does this say about humanity? What does this say about being human? These questions are always hard for me to answer because humanity is something so hard to understand. Reading these poems made me understand humanity in a female point of view. The main idea I got out of the poems were to be yourself, accept who you are. Don’t let others put you down because you weigh more than 130 pounds, you have grey hair, or you have many flaws and imperfections because those flaws and imperfections aren’t really flaws and imperfections. They are qualities that make you who you are. Through a Catholic lens, we are in the process of being perfect and living through the truth. To live through the truth is to embrace your flaws and embrace who you really are. You don’t need all the makeup and the plastic surgery because “perfection is the disease of the nation, it’s the soul that needs a surgery.” In the first poem, it talked about loving yourself and accepting who you are. As a woman we are strong and powerful, but others don’t see that. They perceive us as weak because we are girls. But that’s not the case, we can be a strong and powerful as boys, possibly even stronger and more powerful. To start loving yourself you must accept all the wonderful features and qualities that God has given you. And once you love yourself, you can start to love others even better. Every woman in our world needs space. We are free. We aren’t anyone’s toy, but gifts of joy. Because men perceive us as “weak”, they pretend to love us and use us, but we shouldn’t let them. Women aren’t weak, we are powerful, important, and independent human beings that God created. Maybe you should think twice and respect a woman, because if it weren’t for them you wouldn’t be here right now, reading this. I was able to relate to the second poem we read. Basically, it talks about the struggles of being a 14-year-old girl without anyone to guide you or help you. As girls, we see these problems as things that can ruin our lives forever, but adults see them as little problems because there are so many more big problems in our world today that people should worry about. There is a lot of pressure making decisions and letting others know that you are better than what they think. At the end of each stanza, there is a line that repeats. “and momma’s in the bedroom, with the door closed.” I believe this symbolizes that the mother isn’t there to help. Not because she doesn’t care. But maybe because she doesn’t want to go through being 14 again or she doesn’t want to see them grow up. But, with all the struggles and problems, it becomes a past that will create our future and our lives.
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Everyday, we test our faith through things that we don’t like. In the story, Elie is put in wretched conditions and brutality with his father through concentration camps. Before Elie left, the one thing Moishe the Beadle told him was to have the strength to ask God the real questions. Through this cruelty, Elie’s faith is being tested. Does he have the strength? As he stays in the camp, will his faith grow stronger or weaker? Has he lost all of his faith? He seems to have lost some of it, or at least there are signs that show readers he is struggling. “Never shall I forget…smoke…faces of children…flames…nocturnal silence…moments that murdered my God and my soul…Never.” (pg. 34) As I keep reading the story, I hope to discover and learn new things about his journey of faith. Children and babies are precious creatures, born to live and love, play and be happy, and share joy towards others. But, in this story babies are treated as objects, not human beings. Extremely sad and disgusted, I read “…small children. Babies! Yes, I did see this, with my own eyes… children thrown into flames.” Why would they do this? Why would they bring human beings in camps just to die? This is complete cruelty. In conclusion, our world was is neither a good place nor a bad place. In class, I remember hearing that through our lives we avoid the truth and get rid of it, but maybe that’s how we keep a stable life. In Night by Elie Wiesel the Jews in the concentration camps had the strength to see the truth and reveal the truth. They had the strength from God to live life as the truth. Does Elie have the strength? Will he gain it or walk away from it? There is so much more to find out. Maybe Elie is already gaining strength because he was able to watch all the bad things going on. But, on the other hand, Elie begins to lose his faith, which means he does not have the strength to stay true to himself. In my opinion, I believe that Elie’s faith will begin to grow once he realizes the truth about himself, which will yet be discovered. I believe that his faith will grow when he begins to accept the strength given from God. In class, we started a new book called, “Night” by Elie Wiesel which is about his experience in the Holocaust and his thoughts about everything that had happened so successfully but yet very cruel. This week, I read chapters one through twenty-seven and everything already happened so quickly. Elie, a thirteen-year-old boy, is a young and religious boy who prays a lot but he doesn’t know why. He questioned many things in life. With the help of Moishe the Beadle, Elie continues to study the Kabbalah, even though that is not what his father wants. Elie, his family, and others around there heard the bad things going around about Germany and what they were doing. For some reason, they thought they were safe. A few years after thinking that everything was going to be fine, their lives were changed forever. In 1944, German soldiers in the army vehicles made their way on the streets of the Jews who doubted their extermination. They thought they would be safe. They thought that the Red Army would protect them and defeat Germany, but that’s not what happened. They were taken into the ghettos, then trains that led to the concentration camps for them to work. Sometimes I wonder how they got so much power over everyone and why they didn’t just fight back. I believe that because there were more people who thought that this systematic cruelty was bad than the Germans, everyone could have gathered together and possibly defeated the Germans. Why did the non-Jewish neighbors and friends let this happen? In class, our teacher said, “It is truly hard to be good.” And I agree with her 100%. I believe being good is not just doing the right things and making good choices for you, but also towards others. It means to help others and care for them. If these bystanders were good they could have put their own selves in danger. They were afraid. We all are told that we should help others and sacrifice ourselves for others but, in reality, everyone cares about their life more. We all just want an easy and simple life for ourselves. And if they got involved they would have become victims. No one knew what would have happened if they did get involved but they would rather not know. It is their life, which means their problems. Our lives seem to be planned out, so the ones involved were basically chosen to die and the ones not involved were chosen to live. Reading the rest of the story will make me question many things but also understand life a little better. Instead of wondering, I just want to enjoy the story and feel how Elie felt. I want to understand life in his point of view. Asking questions are good for learning but questioning too much will make you go crazy because every question asked will lead to our existence. Instead of wondering, we should just live and enjoy life because we never know when our lives can be changed forever. Sometimes I wonder if I should do my homework or not, but I am a good girl so I always do my homework. Sometimes I wonder if I should hang out with my friends or stay home, but I usually stay home because I am a loner. Right now, I am wondering if I should finish this blog post or not, but I will because I want to. Our lives depend on something given to us by the most powerful and wise being in our world, God. He gave us free will. He gave us choice. Free will or choice is the act of making our own decision based on two or more possibilities. This is seen through silence, like when God stayed silent while he was watching his Son be crucified on the cross. God stayed silent to allow Jesus to choose to die on the cross to save us from sin or something else. Our world is run and created by the choices. Something that uses choice is love. Love is something so strange but powerful that it cannot be explained. We aren’t forced to love God. We have a choice to love him. No one wants to be loved by someone who doesn’t actually love you. And no one wants to love someone they actually love. God gave us the choice to love whoever, whenever and that is how our life works. Some questions that come to my mind are, why did God stay silent when Jesus was crucified? Why didn’t God save his son? Why did he let him die? If God is so powerful, why didn’t he create everything perfect? These questions will stay unanswered forever because life is a mystery. Writing this is actually making me question so many things in life but as human beings we should just live life and let everything happen naturally. Eventually everyone is going to die. There are going to be terrible imperfections in our life that cause us to die. We might get hit by a car. Mistakes can ruin our lives. We might fall of a tall building. We might get shot in a shooting. Anything can happen to us and eventually we will die. But when we die we will be united with Jesus, we will see him again and have a whole new life with him. Life is so short, yet so long. We should just live happily and stop worrying about the bad things in life. Forget about everything because nothing really matters in life and in the end you will be reunited with the Son of God who saved you from sin. In class, we were supposed to make a bucket list. I chose to do a bucket list on things I want to do before I die. I have a lot and there still may be a lot more added on to this list. To see the slide show click here!
This week, we had an assignment to write a Sonnet. Our topics were chosen randomly and I got the one the said, “Your favorite T.V. Show or Video Game”. Right away, I thought of “The Walking Dead” because it is both a T.V. show and a video game. When I went home, I also go the idea of the T.V. show “Eyecandy” on MTV because it is about a killer trying to find the perfect one, so he stalks the main character, Victoria Justice, and finds a way for them to be together without her finding out. Anyway, I ended up just doing my first choice because it was better. There is so much to talk about in this T.V. show but I wanted to make the poem to describe walkers and survival, which is what I believe, the main idea of the show. It was very hard to write this Sonnet because there were certain rules you had to follow, a specific rhyme scheme, and there had to be 10 syllables on each line. As the writer, I put myself as apart of the “strong humans” and others and the “dead”. Doing this will allow readers to understand that I don’t really know what the dead is like but that’s how humans see them. As a catholic, I tried to put something religious. If you read carefully you will see that “he who rules the lands” is God and the “treasure” is us. I also tried to use a lot of symbolism like, “treasure” and “red”. As I wrote this poem I began to realize that this poem might possibly have a deeper meaning. It describes life and the "infection" is the bad influence while the "dead" are the ones who have failed, given up, and have been infected. The "fragile bones" inside are the minds that can be easily hurt and influenced which are hidden behind the “thick red meat” which is the overall appearance of our society. The ones with "bright eyes" and "scrawny hands" are those who seek success but are too weak. The "precious pure bodies" are the innocent ones. The "disease" symbolizes the inner society and how badly we have been influenced. “But with one shot we, strong humans, survive” means, with one step, the stronger humans have made it successfully in life, they haven’t given up, or they haven't been influenced badly. I am very proud of what I have written and if you would like to read it click here! Mockingbirds are a symbol of innocence. They are a symbol of peace. They cause no harm to anyone. In “To Kill a Mockingbird,” a well-written novel by Harper Lee, the mockingbird can symbolize many things in the story. There are many examples of how a mockingbird is a symbol of innocence. As I read the story, I did many close readings, asked questions, and annotated the book. Throughout the story, you will see and understand how many characters can be and portray the “mockingbird”. The title, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” means to kill innocence, to take it away. I believe the “mockingbird” in the story is Mr. Arthur Radley or Boo Radley. At the end of the story, Boo saves Jem and Scout from being attacked by Bob Ewell. Atticus and Heck Tate think that Boo killed Bob but they don’t want to put the attention on him that he doesn’t want. Scout understands and says, “Well, it’d be sort of like shootin’ a mockingbird, wouldn’t it?” (pg. 370) This means that if they put all the attention on Boo, who is innocent, would be exposing him to everything he didn’t want to go through. The reason why Boo stays inside is because he wants to stay innocent. He can’t handle all the things that are happening in the town. When Scout understands why Atticus and Heck Tate say that Bob Ewell fell on his knife, it shows the innocence that Scout has lost throughout the story. In the beginning of the story, Scout is an innocent little girl who learns things about her family, other people, and the town through questions she asked. As I kept reading the story, Scout started to understand things and some things that little girls shouldn’t know. The title, “To Kill a Mockingbird” is about how innocence is lost as a young girl. The story is about how innocence is killed and the things that can cause other things to happen. Scout is a very intelligent, and curious girl. Questions are one of the things that made her lose her innocence. Another thing was doing what she felt like doing and just living her life in wonder and curiosity. Eventually as you grow up, you have no choice but to experience things you don’t what to experience. Somehow, you will learn things you don’t want to learn. But that’s life! Life isn’t fair. In order for you to live life, you need to know life and everything involved in it. Scout had to go through tough times when people were talking bad about Atticus, but she lived through it, her and Jem. Writing this made me think of the meaning of the novel. I believe that the meaning of the story is about life and innocence. In class, Ms. Gunter said that she thought it was interesting that Harper Lee chose to write a story with events involving adults through a little girl’s perspective. I agree. Maybe it’s a message to adults about how children feel and think about adult struggles. Maybe it teaches adults how to be towards children who are curious about things they shouldn’t know. Maybe it teaches children how life is going to be like. Maybe this story was written for children who are learning new things everyday and losing their innocence. There are several reasons why Harper Lee chose to do this and I’m still figuring out why. Maybe I should ask questions about things that make me curious. Maybe I should try to be like Scout and wonder about life. There is no such thing as “perfect” in our world. No one has reached his or her limit of becoming better. Everyone has so much to learn in his or her whole lifetime. The quote by Coach John Wooden explains that if you apply yourself to something you can get better. There is always something new in our world that you can learn. You have grown up knowing what you want to become, or maybe you are still figuring it out, but you know who you are. You know your own strengths and weaknesses. You know what you like and what you dislike. When you do something you can’t just do it. You have to apply yourself to it. This means to make it your own or do something in a way that will help you get better. This is what I always try to do. If you apply yourself, it will be easier for you to know the process and what might happen next. It will help you later on in the future. If you want to get better at something, you have to know and think that you can get better. You have to know that there is a lot more room for improvement. You have to know your limits. When you know your ready for something challenging you can tackle it step by step. This quote by Rocky Balboa explains that the things you do doesn’t matter, but it is how and why you do the things you do that matters. The way you do things will help you know what you need to do in the future. It will help you learn why things are done the way they are done. If you want to win, you have to strive and work hard for it. My personal narrative includes many examples of how I worked hard to accomplish one of my many goals. The quote says that the things you do don’t matter but I believe they do. Sometimes you may make a tiny mistake and it can ruin everything. Everything you do has a purpose and if you make a mistake there is a possibility of your whole life being ruined. So it is the things you do that can mess up your life. But nobody is perfect so people should be able to forgive and forget. The things you do and the way you do things both matter because everything you do has a purpose. The process matters and the end result matters too. Everything matters. Being innocent is being a little girl or boy lying in their warm and cozy bed and sheltered in their warm and cozy house. It is like being unaware of what the world really is and not being able to see or understand the reality of things. In the short story “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl, the lamb is a symbol of innocence. There are several different meanings of what the title means. I believe that the lamb in the story is the husband, Patrick Maloney. He was hit with lamb leg and he died; he was slaughtered. Or, the lamb is the wife whose innocence was destroyed or “slaughtered” when she got bad news from her husband and killed him. What is innocence? It is being uninvolved and not responsible for something you had to suffer the consequences for. Sometimes the only people harmed in our world are the innocent ones which is unfair because they did nothing wrong. It also means not knowing many things about the real world. Everyone was born innocent and as they began to grow, they started to learn new things about life. Some of the things you might learn are good information and some bad information. Whatever it is, the knowledge led to new information and you just kept learning new things everyday. As an adult you might be able to be innocent still if you were very sheltered. Being innocent can either be a good thing or a bad thing because you need to know certain things that will help you in life. Throughout the whole story, Patrick is shown as an innocent man and detective who hasn’t done anything wrong. I believe that Patrick wants a divorce with Mary because he isn’t ready to be a father and it would get in the way of his job. Mary’s reaction wasn’t expected at all. After all, she’s a housewife, an innocent housewife. She seemed to love her husband so much that she would do everything for him. She loved him so much, but in the end she would have to live life without him because he is kicking her out. No matter what she did with Patrick, she would without him. In the story, the wife acts like an innocent young lady in the beginning of the story but towards the middle and the end her innocence kind of disappears. She begins to plan things and pretends to be an innocent lady who acted like nothing happened. In this time period, all ladies are seen innocent and no one expects them to do something bad. Most of the time, experiences can be expressed through writing. I wrote a poem about a specific moment in my life. In this poem I expressed a huge meaning behind the reality of how I feel when I am in a race. Writing this poem was very difficult because every word and/or line chosen had a purpose. As I wrote the poem I ask myself questions. How would others interpret the hidden message? What would they think this poem is about? What words should I use to help the reader understand? Those were just a few questions I asked myself because as a writer, especially a beginner, you need to ask yourself questions to help yourself get to where you want to go. Also, writing this poem after reading a lot of other poems made me realize how hard it is to write a poem. The format and structure also had to have a purpose. Everything did. I know my poem had a purpose but I don’t know what it is. I can’t figure out why I did things the way I did them. There was a lot o thinking involved in writing my poem. I decided to write this poem because I felt the need to express my thoughts through something I love to do, which is track and field. I wanted to teach readers a lesson about life goals, dreams, and passions. Achieving something isn't easy and it takes a lot of time. but never give up because one day you will achieve if you believe you can. My poem is about becoming a better you. It is about achieving a goal and learning more out of it. At the end of the poem, I was trying to tell readers to leave behind the sad, hard, and bad things and to continue going forward. But, my poem can be interpreted in many different ways because it is based on how the reader views it. My poem wasn’t written for myself, it was written for others so it doesn’t matter if I understand the poem. It matters if the reader understands the poem. *If you would like to read my poem click here!* |
Quote of the Week!If you are happy, you can give happiness. If you don't love yourself and if you are unhappy with yourself, you can't give anything else but that.
- Gisele Bundchen |