COA Novel final response

          After finishing the COA novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian By Sherman Alexie, I can now see that growing up is hard. Kids go through many hardships such as depression, parental divorce, and death. In my COA book Junior goes through many hardships.
           When Arnold "Junior" Spirit Left his school on the rez to go to the all white school in Rearden his "tribe" wasn't happy. They shunned him when he came home from his school which was 22 miles away from home. The only ones who accepted him were his family. This put Junior through a lot of depression. The only thing he looked forward to was his semi girlfriend Penelope. It didn't help the poblem when his grandmother died from a drunk driver. Death and depression are problems lots of teenagers have gone through. There isn't a specific way to deal with them other than to just not worry about it.
          I don't usually think about the concept of COA to mch but as I do I realize that I don't really have too many problems. My parents are divorced but I don't mind it, and I'm not depressed. The thing that gets to me is death. When anybody close to me dies it just sucks. I don't cry about it but the fact that I'll no longer see that person again bugs me. Junior doesn't get a break from death either, but I guess it's only the fact that everyone dies and we'll all jus gonna have to learn how to deal with it.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

          There are times in life when you feel like you have nobody to talk to. You feel all alone without someone you can really open your true feelings to. Sometimes it's because of you wanting to be your true self or because of some weird physical issue you have. Well in the coming of age novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian Sherman Alexie really illustrates these feelings with young Arnold "Junior" Spirit. Junior is a teenage boy living on the Spokane Indian Reservation with his parents. He was born with too much "Brain Grease" in his skull, and has suffered from some brain damage from the surgical procedures taken place to flush it all out. He draws MANY cartoons as basically an escape from his bad life on the reservation His sister left the "Rez" because she didn't want to deal with it anymore. Junior has one friend, Rowdy. He is the toughest kid on the Rez and has tons of anger issues. He loves comic books so that's why Junior and Rowdy interact so well together. When Junior left the reservation school to go to Reardan High (an all white school that is 20 miles away from his house) he loses his only friend because he is a "traitor".

          The important themes that I found in this book are love and isolation. When Junior did move there he did befriend a nice attractive girl named Penelope. She is a popular, pretty, smart girl. She basically shocked the entire school when she befriended Junior. I found this to be very sweet and noble of Penelope to not care what others thought of her hanging out with Junior. Her father is also a racist which adds to the amount of bravery she has on the matter of her new friend. Even with these new perks Junior is still feeling depressed. Half Indian at home, half white at school. It seems kind of lonely for him to have to travel 40 miles a day and still not be able to interact with people. He gets bullied everywhere he goes because he looks like the perfect target for oncoming attackers.

          I find Junior to be one of my favorite book characters. He wants to pursue art as his career and have a successful life. His parents used to have dreams when they were Juniors age too. His dad wanted to be a professional musician. But he didn't take the chance to pursue it. That's why I admire the way Junior is so bent on trying to get something he really wants to do, and that is to become a professional artist. I believe that is another reason he left a school. One of my favorite things that Junior says is that "If you speak and write in English, or Spanish, or Chinese, or any other language, then only a certain percent of human beings will get your meaning. But when you draw a picture everyone will get it." (page 5). I like the way he is setting up his future and I cannot wait to see what happens next.  

 

Extended Response (Spring Break HW #3)

 The sinking of the Titanic was caused by an optical illusion that hid the iceberg that sunk the ship. In the article "Did the Titanic Sink Because of an Optical Illusion?"http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Did-the-Titanic-Sink-Because-of-an-Optical-Illusion.html, it gives scientific evidence that the iceberg that sunk the titanic may have been hidden by an optical illusion.
  

  In the article it states that there was an optical illusion that hid the iceberg from the view of the captain. You see what happened was during the first night the ship went sailing there were "Atmospheric conditions in the area that night that were ripe for super refraction." What this means is that there was an extraordinary bending of light that caused miraging. British Historian Tim Maltin discovered that multiple ships in the area were also experiencing these issues with the environment. Because of this the light hid the iceberg in a fake horizon. 

Now because of this issue it was also the reason that ship didn't get any rescue from any nearby ships. When the Titanic set off the flares the light that hid the iceberg in the fake horizon hid the flares in one too. Because of this happening no ships were even aware of the ship sinking or even being in any trouble. Maltin got this evidence by asking survivors of the tragedy and checking weather logs of the night of the sinking.

  After reading the article "Did the Titanic Sink Because of an Optical Illusion?" I now have new found information on the sinking of the famous ship. I find this to be very interesting because you would think that sip Captains would be trained with the skills to avoid this problem. But since it was 100 years ago I guess Captains were different back then. This puts a lot of untold mysteries and questions that I had about the sinking of the Titanic to rest and the fact that it was also the environment that lead to the sinking of this ship.  

Plagiarizing (Spring Break HW #2)

  1) What the student did wrong was he copied the writing of another person without giving them credit. They could have cited the source to give the author credit.

  2) "There is a peaceful essence flowing from the structures. Perhaps the cool dark colors and the fiery windows spark memories of our own warm childhood years filled with imagination of what exists in the night and dark starry skies. The center point of the town is the tall steeple of the church,reigning largely over the smaller buildings. This steeple casts down a sense of stability onto the town, and also creates a sense of size and seclusion.To the left of the painting there is a massive dark structure that develops an even greater sense of size and isolation." As it is stated in the article A Brief Understanding of the Starry Night Paintings. http://www.vangoghgallery.com/painting/starryindex.html

  3) There are some ways you can avoid plagiarizing is to A) Cite your source      B) Quote it       Or      C) Rewrite it in your own words.

Student Blog Responses (Spring Break HW #1)

Student blogs


  Two students who I thought did a particularly good job on their blogs were Joyce's post on comparing Peeta and Gale in The Hunger Games, and Ruby's on It's Kind of a Funny Story. Both of their posts were particularly well written and made very good points that I could relate to.
  I really liked Joyce's post on the comparison of Peeta and Gale from The Hunger Games because it was very well written and it did have some points that i can agree with. For one I am not on any particular "team" in the concept of liking Gale or Peeta, I do think they do have their own differences where there are beneficial traits and not so beneficial traits. I agree with Joyce's points on Peeta. He is very caring and usually puts others before himself, and I think Joyce did a very good job on implying these traits he has. The bad part about these traits is that in his selfless way of life he could put others lives before his and this could lead to his death. On the other hand I did think her points on Gale were true. I always thought of him as a noble and strong person who wanted to be free from the Capitol, she then included how this urge to be free created an act of recklessness that lead to some deaths.
  Ruby's post on It's Kind of a Funny Story was well thought out and greatly written with excellent grammar and vocabulary. She started out by connecting her life experiences to the characters life and choices. She wrote about how she would like to just drop all of her homework and just not do it, accept the zero and move on. She then goes into how that after reading the book that this is what the main character has done and that he didn't turn out to great. He just kept on letting the work build up to the point where it was unfix able. She learned that she will inevitably have to complete the assignments and will continue to have to do them again and again and again. The reason I liked her post was because this is exactly how I feel when I'm doing my work and it can get stressful and repetitive. I for one would just love to drop everything and just have freedom but I know that since I'm going into high school grades are going to start to be very important and I'm going to have to start to take them very seriously.
  After reading these two posts I will start to incorporate the techniques they used more into my blogs. From Ruby's I learned to start talking more about my life in my future posts and to start giving more of my thoughts. From Joyce's I should split up the paragraphs differently in sort of an essay style and to probably to some more comparing of characters and their choices. 

Romeo and Juliet

Dear person,

After watching act 1 being performed 1 observation I've made is that there is a great hatred between the Montague's and the Capulets. This is obviously part of the reason why Romeo and Juliet kill themselves. What was really stupid in my opinion was that it took two family members of both sides to die for them to realize their flaws and to stop fighting. As for the writing, it is very difficult to understand. He alters words that we use daily that keep the same meaning but feel very awkward to say. I for one am pretty excited to perform this play. It seems like you don't really know about theatre and that junk until you perform this play.

Sonnet Response

          In one of the sonnets we read Another sonnet for Stephan it is sort of like the author is reciting on little parts of the lifeline of a friend or family member. The sonnet starts off with a little boy, four or five years old, and saying how they'd play together and have a fun time. The next line is about how the boy is aging into a college student, who is handsome smart and very gifted and becoming a mature adult. The sonnet the goes on to explaining how the boy is an adult who is very successful but seems to be "fighting back attackers of his health". Now when you think of someone fighting an illness you would think of cancer. The next line is basically saying that the boy is now dead, but his memory lives on.

          For me it seems that the poem is told from the point of view of Stephan's father. It gives the feeling that the author is watching this person grow and guiding him through life. I particularly liked this sonnet because this young boy grew up into a successful business man with great wealth. The author seemed to be very proud of the achievements that the man accomplished in his life. The sonnet also gives a hint that the mans life was short. In the second line it says that he was creating business plans and paths to wealth. This gives me the hint that he was sort of fresh outta college and putting together his plans for his career.  

            

I really liked this sonnet, it stood out to me compared to the other ones. I really liked that Stephan was successful even in a time of health problems. It seemed that his life was a looked upon from the fathers point of view as a very proud and nice example. I especially liked that even when Stephan died his memory and life was lived on in the heart of his father. That was why I really liked this sonnet

Sonnet

I love to watch the evening sun go down

Big red ball of fire miles away from earth

Go down into the evening sunday ground

Goes down into the evening sunday ground

Goes down into the cold dark city dirt

Brings darkness to the world for a few hours

City creepers come out and walk about

Where the moon comes out and overpowers

Parties break out in loud echoing shouts

Kids sleep through the night in their comfy beds

Then the sun rises up out of the dark

People wake up after resting their heads

Adults get up and get ready for work

And when the day is done and there's no more sound

I love to watch the evening sun go down

Poem hw

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it sit there and rot?
Is it shunned and forgotten?
Is it put away 'til later?
Or just thrown away?

What is success? We have all succeeded in something. To some people it's special, to others it's nothing. You get a feeling of accomplishment, for others it just came and went. This can be the best feeling that you will never wanna give up, when you're about to get it don't mess things up :P

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol is a Slovakian artist born in Pittsburg. He got interested in the life of an artist early on in his life. As a kid he always dreamt of being around interesting famous people. When he got into art, he was instantly famous for his paintings of celebrities, sometimes even more famous than the celebrities themselves.

He is well known for his painting the Lavender Marilyn, painted in 1962. He created it to capture the natural beauty of Marilyn Monroe, and to show the fine details about her. It was a silkscreen on canvas private collection. It was usually an honor to get a self portrait done by Warhol and the paintings usually become infamous.

What I like about this painting is the fine details he puts in his art to give it more of an emphasis. The big red lips, the blues eye shadow, the buttery yellow hair, the more I look at it the more I come to appreciate the piece. There aren't as many artists in our time as there were in the 20th century and I think that we're lucky to have art programs in our school to keep those dreams "alive."




Shaboopie.

20th century kids

From reading more and more of the Basketball Diaries by Jim Carrol it seems like the kids living in the 20th century seem more active than the kids of the 21st. I'm close to the end of the book so there isn't really much to say about it. I really like this book because it doesn't seem like there is a main conflict. By that.I mean the book is basically a journal from the point of view of a 15 year old on a basketball team in New York. I really like this about the book, because it seems to often that I read a book where the plot is easy to guess what will happen. But its different in this book like something new always happens in every chapter. I recommend that everyone reads it.

Basketball diaries

          The kids from basketball diaries are both the same and different from the modern day adolescents in today's society. The kids like to get into trouble and disobey adults and all the normal teenager crap. But what I've started to enjoy more about the kids of 1963 is that their lives seem more dangerous and exciting. Running from the cops and jumping off rocks into lakes from 80 feet in the air.
          In the basketball diaries the kids seem to be living their lives at the age of 13. They're out drinking in the woods and partying. It sounds like a pretty decent life. What I'm waiting for is for them to finally get caught by someone. That is sort of my thesis on what is going to happen in the next part of the book. They've almost been caught for smokin pot or drinking so I dont think they can lay low forever.
          As I said I'm really enjoying this book. The kids are both the same and different from the modern day adolescents in today's society. The kids like to get into trouble and disobey adults and all the normal teenager crap. But what I've started to enjoy more about the kids of 1963 is that their lives seem more dangerous and exciting. Running from the cops and jumping off rocks into lakes from 80 feet in the air.

The Basketball Diaries Response

The book takes place in 1973 New York City and follows a group of 13 year olds in a basketball team. They have the life that I envy. The book is journal entries from the point of view of one of the players on the team. The kids have a pretty lucky life. It seems like the kids back in the 1900s seem to have more freedom then kids do in the 21st century. It doesn't seem like their parents give a crap where their kids end up going. They can leave the house without anyone objecting or asking where they're going.
The good part about their freedom is that they can stay in touch and not lose their friendship. Their group started on a basketball team that happens to be very good. The main character just moved to another neighborhood and the basketball team is one of their last forms of contact with each other. That's where their freedom comes in, in stead of just losing all communication with each other they jump on the back of a moving bus and take it where ever they go. It's funny that these kids are kinda living their lives at the age of 13.
The issue about their freedom is that they sort of get a sense that they can do what ever they want and not really get busted for it. They'd vandalize houses and when the cops come they run and don't really get why they were in trouble. One example was when they were on the ferry they started sniffing glue. When they were high I guess they couldn't handle it or something but they started to vomit over the edge. But their vomit went in the face of a big guy. They hauled ass and got as far away from the guy as they could.
So as you can see their lives are definitely filled with excitement and that's how I'd like to live mine. What I especially liked about the book is that their basketball is what's keeping them together. I also like the style of writing, that it's journal entries instead of just what's happening every second and what the character is thinking at that moment, I like that style of writing.