Literature

As I have been reading the past two stories we have been assigned in English class, I have realized something. It is not that I do not like classical tradgedies such as Hamlet and Oedipus, I just have a hard time reading them. I truly enjoy these stories and think that they are very important pieces of literature to read and understand. Yet there within lies the problem, it is hard to understand a language that has not been spoken in centuries. I really think that you should be required to learn more about this almost foreign language while you are still in middle school and high school. If that was the case, by the time that you got to college you would be able to understand more about the story and it wouldn't take you two hours to read fifty pages. I'm sure it would not take the average person two hours to read, but I actually like understanding what I have read and getting the whole concept of what the author is trying to portray to the reader. I know there are classes that focus more on British Literature and stories of this nature, but unfortunately when it is not part of your major as a college student you do not get all the opportunities to learn about it. This is why I think that if they expressed the importance of this literature before we got to college it would greatly enhance our ability as students to understand this beautiful literature.

My job

So I have never worked in retail before in my entire life until now. I can't say that I hate it, yet I don't get excited when I do have to go in. I especially do not get excited when they schedule you for 3:45 am on Black Friday! Now don't get me wrong I think that Black Friday is an incredible shopping day that I usually participate in every year in order to get the best sales possible. Of course this was before I worked that day! I have never had to be up that early in my life, if anything I am usually still out. So I got to go to bed at 8pm on my holiday, in order to get up at 3am on Friday. When I got there, there was already a line of about 200 or more people standing in line freezing just in order to get the best deals. When I entered it was like the quiet before the storm, no one was really awake yet and everyone sat there just anticipating the rush of greedy customers. When the doors opened the line of people filed in one by one and the roar filled the store. The next twelve hours of my life is a blur of transactions. I could not tell you what a single one of them looked like or what I said to them besides "Thank you", which I am required to say. When I finally got off an hour later than I was scheduled, I walked outside got in my car and rode home in complete silence. I jumped into my bed about 8 pm and crashed! I do not remember waking up again until twelve hours later. So needless to say my holiday was wonderful until Black Friday!

Holidays

Holidays can be a very nice time of year, especially when you get to spend them with your family. This Thanksgiving was very special because for the first time in four years I got to go to Nashville to see my entire family. It was so wonderful getting to see everyone together and seeing cousins I have not seen in a very long time! Also we had a gigantic feast layed out on the table since everyone decided to add one of their own dishes to our family gathering. So needless to say we all ate until we could hold no more and then just sat around reminiscing and laughing. I truly wish that I could go up there every year, but unfortunately my dad seldom gets holidays off. As I get older though, I realize just how important family is and how secial it is to be able to spend time with those you love while you still have the opportunity to.

Thanksgiving

As Thanksgiving draws nearer, it makes me realize the true meaning of the holiday. From what I can tell most people associate Thanksgiving with the food that will be devoured or the awesome football games being watched. But is that what Thanksgiving is really about? I don't think so. Yes, the food is going to be wonderful, but what is more important to remember while our eating that food is who is sharing that experience with you. You need to remember how thankful you are to have those people in your life and how great it is that you can all come together for the holidays because many do not get to. Thanksgiving to me is all about family and remembering all the things that you are thankful for in your life and in the lives of others.

Word Count: 153

Writing

Whenever I am frustrated and need to get away from the world I lock myself in my room, which is my favorite place to be. I usually just grab any book off the shelf and immerse myself in someone else's life for awhile and it helps me not focus on my problems. If I am too frustrated to concentrate on reading, I write. It is amazing how much better you feel when you get all the thoughts out of your head onto a piece of paper. It is almost as if you are transferring the thoughts onto paper so your brain can rid itself of them and no longer has to concentrate on them. It also tends to help me see things more clearly when I write it down. When it is written out it's almost like it becomes a sort of truth that you knew but could not see or figure out. So if you ever are frustrated or can't figure something out and need relief, just write.

Point of View between Movie and Text

When you take a written work and compare it to a movie made about that work, it is

almost always different. One of the main differences is the way in which one perceives point of

view. When reading it is usually very easy to tell from whose point of view the story is being

told. In the story "A Worn Path" by Eudora Welty, the point of view is third person. The reader

gets an objective view of an old woman named Phoenix who travels down a treacherous worn

path every year to retrieve medicine for her grandson, but not actually able to see into the mind

of this woman. It does, however, give us an idea of who her character really is when she speaks

aloud to herself.

The movie was much different for me. When I saw it the point of view was changed from

that of an objective third party just watching these events occur to that of Phoenix's point of

view. I was no longer just watching Phoenix travel through the woods encountering people in her

journey, but I became Phoenix. I felt her pain and saw it in her facial expressions. I think that the

movie gave the text a visual aspect that is only attained with movies.

Movies can be a great way to define characters from stories, but you also lose your own

vision or idea of how you wanted that character to be. When you read a book or a story, you tend

to visualize it the way in which you want it to be. No two people read a story the same because

you put yourself and your own life experiences within the characters and story itself. However,

when you see a movie someone else has already done that for you. They chose the actors that

would represent the characters and chose the setting that would be used to their standards not the

readers. I think this can be seen as both a positive and negative aspect of converting texts to

movies. In one sense you get to see how the characters could look as a real person and for a lot of

people this make the story itself come to life more. It is negative though because when you read

a story after watching the movie you tend to associate what you have seen, so that all you can see

when you read a character's name is the face you saw in the movie and not get it from your own

imagination.

Word Count: 429

Wish

If I could wish for one thing in the entire world, it would be to be 15 again, but with the knowledge I have today. Now to most people this seems insane. I mean who would really want to be a teenager again, but the truth is I would. It is not because I want to relive my high school years. Trust me I would not have graduated a year early if they had been "the best years of my life". There are so many reasons though that being a teenager is so much easier. I didn't have a single bill when I was 15 and I only worked because I wanted money not because it was a necessity to live. With the knowledge of how my life would turn out, I would change a lot of things that I never knew would affect me later. I wouldn't worry so much about boyfriends and I would definitely try harder in school. I wouldn't be so horrible and make my parents worry so much. I would do a lot of things differently. I guess this is my wish because try as I might I regret a lot of things from my past and it would be noce to go back and change those things.

Word Count:215

Procrastination

Isn't it funny how when we leave school and think "ahh…I have all weekend to get so much done", that it never ends up being the case. I try so hard to change the way I do things and I try to plan what days I will have time to do certain assignments, but it never works out. Either the assignment takes longer than I expected or I think that I can squeeze it in when I really have no time at all and I end up doing it at 1 am on Monday morning as usual. This is called procrastination. I truly think it is a disease and I have a full blown case! You think that you would get better at managing things when you are older, but that is simply not the case for some people like me. So instead of time management, the procrastinator just gets lack of sleep.

Word Count: 154

Questions

“Sonny’s Blues”


1. This story is told from the older brother’s point of view which only allows the reader to get his perspective on everyone’s life and see through his experiences.

2. The older brother is a school teacher. I think that his profession suggests that he is a very determined person who tried to rise above the influences that surrounded him as a child growing up in Harlem.

3. This story would change greatly if it were told by Sonny because you would see an insight that only he can give into his life.

4. The narrator writes his brother after the death of his little girl.

5. The narrator’s mother asks him to look after Sonny and makes sure to be there for him which he does not do until the end really. He tries at first when he makes him move in with his girlfriend, but that falls apart.

6. The names used are familiar names that most everyone can relate to. I mean everyone has a mother and father and a lot of people have brothers so it gives the reader a sense of familiarity.

7. I think that the statement, “Now these are Sonny’s blues”, means that this was his part of the music, like it was Sonny’s turn to make the music his own. Sonny makes the music his own by making it original and just letting go of his inner boundaries and just feeling the music.

“A Worn Path”

1. The point of view used in this story is third person and I believe it is objective because you never really get insight into Phoenix’s mind just what she says aloud.

2. A phoenix is a mythical bird that is known for strength and perseverance because it lives for a very long time much like the depiction of the character Phoenix. She is very old and yet still goes on in order to take care of her grandson.

3. I think that the way in which Phoenix’s dreams and hallucinations are portrayed as real as everything else in the story gives a very dream like quality to the story and shows the reader how her mind is working.

4. Phoenix is treated without much respect and seen as a charity case, but they are not hostile towards her. They treat her differently because she is black and it shows segregation which has always been prominent in the South and since Welty spent most of her life in Mississippi I would assume it takes place there.

5. She talks about the black dog being strong and fearless and I think that she admires that in any creature because she is that way.

6. I think that the statement of Phoenix sitting motionless as if she was in armor is a good visual statement, but also means that she was untouchable. Nothing was going to get to her or stop her from making that journey that she made yearly for her grandson.

Word Count: 497

Reflection on two stories

The stories that we have been concentrating on in English are "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and "Revelation" both by Flannery O' Connor. They are actually very different in the fact of their storylines, but taking a deeper look at them has led us to discover that they have great universal truths. O'Connors stories show a sense of humanity and grace within people. She shows the relationship of her characters going through a traumatic experience in order to find Grace like with the Grandmother in "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and Mrs. Turpin in "Revelation". I think that O'Connor was a very perceptive woman of humanity and changes coming in the world and that we would all have to be more accepting. She shows the challenges of these changes within the very characters themselves and their unwillingness to change.

Word Count: 149

Losing a piece of your heart

Sadness is something we all experience in life. Losing loved ones and things is a part of life that is never truly fair and is always extremely sad. When you love something or someone so much and they die, it feels like you are dying inside. Like they took a little piece of your heart with them and now you are empty and missing something inside. It hurts. It always hurts. You can never truly prepare yourself for this type of pain and you can't make it go away when it is experienced. To me there is no amount of physical pain I could go through to equal the amount that a loss of a loved one causes. The pessimistic in me wonders why as human beings we love at all because everything in this world will die. It is inevitable. So why put ourselves through it. It is like setting ourselves up to hurt. But then I think to myself what a horrible way to live, to never experience that love for another even if it will eventually cost us.

Word Count: 187

Trust

Trust is something that is given almost freely to another. It is what builds relationships and what makes them stronger. Trust is an idea. A universal idea like the ones we have been discussing. No one person has the same definition of trust. Some may think that it is honesty and truth within any sort of relationship, while others see it as integrity within a person. There is a world of possibilities when it comes to this word, but there is one thing that most everyone agrees. It is easy to gain someone's trust, but once it is gone there is no getting it back. If someone loses your trust, you may forgive them, but you know in your heart that you will never trust them again.

Word count:140