Conclusion

Throughout the year we have done a number of mostly boring and some fun blogs. Now that I have read through all my blogs I am just realising how many we have actually done. I noticed that my writing has gotten progressively better since our first post. I have also noticed that there is no pattern in length, which I am very surprised at. I would have guessed that my blogs would have gotten longer after I had gotten used to blogging. I am now very happy that this is the last blog because I would alway have trouble remembering it and I almost forgot this blog to. I have also done several extra credit blogs and I was glad that I remembered to do them so I could get some of the pionts back from the blogs that I forgot to do. I definately like the blogs where you don't have to write about what we were doing in class. For example the blog about the best friend versus the blog about Romeo and Juliet. I would rather write one about the best friend blog over the Romeo and Juliet Blog anyday. Well I can't say I am going to be sad about not having to blogs every week because I am glad to get this last one out of the way.

Essay Challenges

I have learned so much about writing essays this year. I have never though of my self as a great writer, and I still don't, but I feel that I am much better now than at the beginning of the year. I think beeing good at writing essays is a very good skill to have. Litterary analysis is a good way to explore the authors intentions.

I have a couple shortcomings in my essay that I need to fix. For example I can never come up with a good, original title. I also don't have a very solid hook, and without a good hook anyone reading my essay will probly judge it right away as boreing. But I do think I have some good body pargraphs and qoutes. But This weekend I am going to edit and fix parts of my essay.

Over the summer when I have nothing else to do and the time to read it I want to finish reading Deathstroke by Richard Kelley. I started reading it at the begining of the school year but then we started reading To Kill A Mockingbird and then I did not have the time to keep reading so I eventually just gave up and forgot about it but when I have the time I would really like to finish it. The book is about aliens attacking the Earth, which in most books is all the same. But in this book the story is based in the Northwest Washington region, and the author describes some parts right here in Olympia. The Other book I want to read is The Giver by Lois Lowry. One of my friends has been pestering me to read that book for the last two years and I have always been putting it off. I have heard it is one of the best books ever. So I guess I will just have to find out.

Dreams

I had a dream a couple weeks ago about some random guy with a baseball bat attacking me and then stabbing me with it. I did avoid baseball bats the next day but I did not think of an elbow right in the same spot from soccer which lead to a broken rib. I believe I am more closely aligned with Mercutio because something actually happened to both of us unlike Romeo who only dreams of things happening. For example, Romeo has a bad feeling at the beginning of the book and since then things have gone down hill for them since.

Romeo and Juliet Present day

The present day has so many things that are influenced by Romeo and Juliet. I found this song named Romeo and Juliet by Dire Straits. The point of this song is to show how some people are just made for each other. "A pair of star crossed lovers..." It is also a message for young people to make sure they are choosing the right person and not just jumping into something that they are going to regret.


A love-struck Romeo sings the streets a serenade
Laying everybody low with a love song that he made.
Finds a streetlight, steps out of the shade
Says something like, "You and me babe, how about it?"

Juliet says, "Hey, it's Romeo, you nearly gave me a heart attack!"
He's underneath the window, she's singing, "Hey la, my boyfriend's back.
You shouldn't come around here singing up to people like that...
Anyway, what you gonna do about it?"

ROMEO:
Juliet, the dice was loaded from the start
And I bet when you exploded into my heart
And I forget I forget the movie song.
When you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong, Juliet?

Come up on different streets, they're both the streets of shame.
Both dirty, both mean, yes, in the dream it was just the same
And I dreamed your dream for you and now your dream is real.
How can you look at me as if I was just another one of your deals?

When you can fall for chains of silver,
You can fall for chains of gold,
You can fall for pretty strangers
And the promises they hold.
You promised me everything, you promised me thick and thin, yeah!
Now you just say, "Oh Romeo? Yeah, you know I used to have a scene with him".

Juliet, when we made love, you used to cry.
You said, "I love you like the stars above, I'll love you 'til I die".
There's a place for us, you know the movie song.
When you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong, Juliet?

I can't do the talk, like the talk on TV
And I can't do a love song, like the way it's meant to be.
I can't do everything, but I'll do anything for you.
I can't do anything, 'cept be in love with you!
And all I do is miss you and the way we used to be.
All I do is keep the beat... and bad company.
Now all I do is kiss you through the bars of a rhyme,
Juliet, I'd do the stars with you any time!

Juliet, when we made love you used to cry.
You said, "I love you like the stars above, I'll love you 'til I die".
There's a place for us, you know the movie song.
When you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong, Juliet?

NARRATOR:
And a love-struck Romeo sings a street-suss serenade
Laying everybody low with a lovesong that he made
Finds a convenient streetlight, steps out of the shade
He says something like, "You and me babe, how about it?"

ROMEO:
You and me babe, how about it?

ec

Throughout the year we have done so much fun and boring things. I think the class is really fun, but some of the writing assignments can be pretty dull. Some of my other classes are all work and no talk and we do nothing fun at all. In English we do allot more activities that are pretty interesting.

At the beginning of the year when I saw the word motif I thought it meant motive, like he had a motive for murder. But then when I saw the definition I was totally confused. I ended up just asking my sister, who is a senior, what in the world motif meant and she said pretty much the exact definition the dictionary had. So then I asked some of my friends and they finally told me what it was and explained it.

SKITS

The first part of the story that I would want to see should be the part when Pip first meets Magwich and he turns Pip upside down and tells Pip about the liver eating man. I also think doing a skit on the part of the book when Pip and Herbert fight would be a good skit to watch. I believe this would be a good part of the story to see preformed because I think it is one of the more interesting parts of the story. It would also be funny to see a fake fight were people are way over dramatic. The one other scene that I would really like to see would be the part when Magwich is asking Pip about his benefactor. I can just imagine his face and I think it would be a fairly simple skit to preform.

The one main thing that I do not get in this weeks reading is in chapter 30 on page 246 when Trabbs boy keeps reappearing around corners. "I had not gone much further down the street as the post office, when I again beheld Trabbs boy shooting around by a back way and this time he was entirely changed." So why does Trabbs boy keep coming around corners in front of Pip and why does he freak out when he is moving passing Pip?

This photo reminds me of how Pip does not really belong anywhere. He is in between social classes, his family and history is in the lower class but his future is in the higher social class. When Pip finds out that Joe is coming to England he feels excited but he does not want Drummle to see how Joe is a lower classed peasant. If he does then he will make fun of Pip and his connections to the lower class.

For my paragraph's three points I used the three levels of lies; small, medium, and large lies. The characters use this through out the whole story. My first concrete detail is on page 18 when Algernon says Lady Bracknell "Good heavens! Lane! Why are there no cucumber sandwiches? I ordered them specially." this is an example of a small lie, because it is only him hiding that he kept them for himself. Then I will have a concrete detail for medium adn large lies, and say how it relates to the story line of the play.

The importance of being earnest/ victorian research

The Victorian era research has helped understand the book so much better. If i hadn't researched this era I would have not gotten this book at all. I would be thinking about how an author could come up with something so bazaar. I would not even get the story line, I would be so lost at the couple pages. Not to mention later in the story with the climax of the story.

If I hadn't researched marriage in the Victorian era I would be so confused when Algernon and Cecily get engaged after knowing each other for only several minutes. pg. 53 "You will marry me, wont you?" This is a quote that Algernon says to Cecily on the same day that they meet each other. In the present times people take months or years together before they become engaged. Later in the story it proves that you should always get to know someone a lot better before you get engaged to them. pg.64 Cecily asks "Are you called Algernon" and he responds "I can not deny it." This proves how easily it is to lie about something, and make them believe you. Overall I am so glad that we had the chance to research this time period before we read the book.

I probably could change a lot in myself to make myself a better person but for this year I am only going to change a few things to make my life easier and funner. I could definitely organize my belongings because my room and backpack is a mess. I can also work on studying ahead of test days. And I might be happier in school if I try to look on the bright side of doing things, for example projects, and reading a book, or even a science lab

The reasons I chose these three things to change is that I have trouble finding papers, and I always forget about a test coming up, and I usually am depressed when a teacher says that they have a project to do. I need to organise my things so it is easier to find the miscellaneous thins that I may need in the future. And in some classes when I need to find some kind of paper in my bag I have to dig through my backpack every time and sometimes it rips, and then my teacher may not be happy with the appearance of the paper. On test days I always freak out because i forgot to study and I don't really get what the test is on and then I might get a bad grade. But if I just remember to study then I wont freak out every test day. When teacher say that we have to do something that I may think is boring I look only on the bad side of things. If I just look on the good side of things then school could actually be fun.