Welcome to my blog! This blog is a compilation of my writing assignments from my English I class. There’s anything from creative pieces to reflections on pieces of literature on this site. Enjoy!
IRJ Reflection #22 March 2, 2010
Polite to Vulgar
In the Odyssey, Prince Telemachus shows hospitality when it is said that “[H]e glimpsed Athena now and straight to the porch he went, mortified that
a guest might still be standing at the doors.”(Fagles1.81) This shows not to be the only instance of hospitality in the novel. When this kindness is juxtaposed next to these modern times a stark contrast reveals itself. Out society nowadays seems to have lost its generosity and manors. Children used to be raised to not put their elbows on the table, to clean up after themselves, and to be hospitable. What has the world come to? We are now living in a society that doesn’t frown down to eating with your elbows on the table, or throwing your empty cup out your car window, and not showing visitors the respect they deserve. Though some still hold these values dear, many disregard them. This change in values overtime has shown how vulgar people act these days.
Picture Source: http://www.retroclipart.com/images/TwoMenGreetingEachOther.gif
IRJ Reflection #21 February 5, 2010
God: Fueling Rivalry
Sibling rivalry has been around forever. This rivalry does not always mean literal fighting but jealously and competition as well. A sibling rivalry is seen in Genesis 29 of the Bible, when Isaacs’s two wives, Leah and Rachel, who are sisters as well, are competing to give Isaac children. Leah succeeds first and gains a total of nine children, while Rachel only receiving three. God assists in the competition by making the women barren and healing them as well.
Through the production of offspring the women are hopping to steal Isaacs love and attention. The two sisters also use their maids to produce children for Isaac when they are not able to.
This proves to be no way for sisters to be acting. They are using their children as bait to try to catch the eye of their husband. I admit that sibling are always going to fight, there is not much that can be done to stop that, but this competition between Leah and Rachel gets out off hand, and God is helping it along. God appears to be trying to please the women as they try to please their husband. He turns them barren only to heal them again when they want more children. God is fueling this rivalry and is not helping it to end, as he should be.
image source: http://images36.fotki.com/v1152/photos/2/282664/4542311/fight_cartoon-vi.jpg
IRJ Reflection #20 February 4, 2010
The Problem that God Faces
In Genesis 8.22 God states, “I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of he human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done.” God says this after he wipes out the Earth with a flood. But in Genesis 19.13 God sends two angles to destroy Sodom, therefore contradicting himself in a way. He says that he will not wipe out all of humankind, and technically by just destroying a single city, he is not wiping out everyone, but God still destroys many people in a harsh way. God faces the same problem that he had when he wiped out the entire human race except for Noah and his family, that he is never satisfied. When he is unhappy with the civilization that he has created he simply gets rid of them, and now with the city of Sodom, which is a place of exceeding sin, God wants to destroy them because they do not cooperate with his ideals. God’s basic standards are that if a person does not fit his mold for the perfect human, he will kill them, so demonstrated in Gen. 8.22 and 19.13. This is a horrible outlook on life and if God does exist it is surprising that he has not already wiped out our world today, for it is far worse than anything seen in the book of Genesis.
IRJ Reflection #19 January 29, 2010
Selfishness That Leads to Destruction and Manipulation
“Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand on another’s speech.” (Genesis 11.6-11.7) God proclaims this when he sees the people in Shinar all speaking the same language and beginning to build a city. By spreading every one out and making them all have different languages; God is obviously trying to confuse the people so that they cannot continue to work together. He believes that if they can all easily communicate and work together that they will be able to accomplish anything.
God is selfish by acting this way. As soon as he doesn’t like something or feels threatened, he destroys what it is that is causing him anguish. When he did not like the people of earth he sent a flood to wipe all of the human civilization out except for Noah and the ark. And now with humankind approaching new heights in architecture and in mental maturity he feels that he must stop those who threaten his power.
God thinks that he has to control everything and that he should be the ruler; a thought like this can only come from a selfish person. Instead of changing the dialect of all of the people, God should have just gone along with the advances the civilization was making, because much later in the future mankind would be doing much more than building towers that reached the heavens.
IRJ Reflection #18 January 28, 2010
Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust
In Genesis, the first book of the Bible, God proclaims to Adam, “[U]ntill you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The thought that we are all dust sparks an interesting idea. In truth we are all made out of recycled atoms, our cells are the only “new” elements that we contain. Dust is created of similar “recycled” partials. It is recycled in the sense that it is compiled of partials that are no longer in use like dead shin cell.
It is said in the bible that God created Adam, the first man, out of the dust of the ground. When I body decomposes it returns to dust because the body’s elements are broken down and return to their origin. This concept relates back to the idea of the circle of life: we are created, we live, and we return to what we were. It is interesting because with each death the earth replenishes itself for what was taken from it when there was a birth.
Another thought is that when we die and turn back to “dust”, part of us could be used to create another human being. This is correct when speaking of atoms because our atoms are in fact going to become part of something else when we pass away, and we are already made of other peoples
IRJ-OP #17 November 20, 2009
Freedom: The Key to Respect
As the Master of Jordan College and the Librarian sit and discuss Lyra’s well known future, the Librarian responds to one of the Masters comments by saying, “That’s the duty of the old, to be anxious on behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old” (The Golden Compass). This comment proves to be true through out The Golden Compass, and it emphasizes the part of the book that is similar to our real world.
Book Summary and Review: overview of The Golden Compass and book review
Extra Information: official website of Philip Pullman (author)
The clash between the old and young is seen in just about every example of pop culture and real life. This internal and external battle is depicted in movies such as Freaky Friday and experienced in many households around the world. As show in The Golden Compass, Lyra rebels from most authority figures in her life, because they give her restrictions and rules for her safety that she does not under stand. She wants freedom and they want her to be safe, the mixture of both does not tend to result in happiness for either side.
In order to abide by ones rules you must respect the person to whom the rules belong. Lyra, not possessing much respect to any elder at Jordan College, does not conform to their rules due to this lack of respect. As soon as Lyra leaves Jordan and experiences a freedom of her own, she develops a new admiration for her elders and learns to respect and follow their rules. She discovers why the rules are there in the first place and understands that to keep the elders respect and her safety, she must abide by the rules. This idea of respect before cooperation stands to be true in real life outside of the novel. Once the rebel gets a taste of freedom and experiments on their own, they discover the true purpose of the regulations and rules, and develop that much needed respect.
Proposition: Freedom must be allotted to a rebellious minor in order for them to abide by given rules and regulations.
IRJ-CP #16 November 12, 2009
The Mirrored Journal
Gazing into the gloomy darkness of the room Kyle quickly felt along the dusty wall in search of a metal knob. As her small fingers ran across the cool metal surface a shiver was sent down her spine. With a swift turn, a dim light sprang to life on the tall ceiling. The pendant provided just enough light to enable Kyle to locate the heavy green velvet curtains that adorned the grand windows, and pull them away. Immediately the rectangular room was flooded with the warm afternoon sunlight. A sigh of satisfaction escaped from her lips; she had found what she had been searching for.
It had been exactly three weeks since her distant grandfather had died of “heart failure”, but Kyle wasn’t convinced. She and her parents had just moved into the family estate in Napa, California after the passing of her mother’s father, and she was lonelier than she had ever been before. The past month had been the worst time if her life. Three days before her grandfather died, her 20-year-old brother, Logan, had been killed in a car accident in Maine. Kyle and her brother were more than just siblings they were best friends and she could hardly stand life without him. Not only had she lost her brother and her grandfather but also she lost her second closest friend, Hailey, thanks to the move to California. Napa was so boring, and since it was mid-summer she didn’t know a single sole. She was stranded on a 14-acre estate with only her cat, Toulouse, to keep her company. But Kyle would not have been surprised if her cat had suddenly dropped dead as well, just like everything else loved was doing.
As Kyle turned to look at the room her attention was immediately drown to the immense bookshelves that covered three of the four walls entirely. Halfway up the wall was a balcony that stretched around the perimeter of the room so that the second level of books could be reached. She at once knew that this room was the room she had been looking for; it was her grandfather’s study. For this room, she knew would hold the key to all of her unanswered questions.
IRJ-OP #15 November 11, 2009
Amelia Earhart
Tenacity – The Easiest Part in Making a Difficult Decision
Amelia Earhart
Amelia Earhart, also know as “The Queen of the Air”, was the first woman to receive the Distinguished Flying Cross and was a very motivational female figure in the 1930’s as well as today. Born in 1897 in Atchison, Kansas, Earhart was one of the first women pilots in the United States and broke numerous records and received copious awards for doing so. Earhart once said, “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.”(School Planner) With thoughts like this Earhart inspired woman and men alike and used her past experiences to reach out to the rest of the world.
Biography: The life story of Amelia Earhart
Background: The criteria and description of the Distinguished Flying Cross
Making decisions is part of our everyday life, from deciding what to eat for dinner to deciding whether or not to invade a country. These decisions are not always easy but for the majority of the time once the decision is made that rest is a piece of cake. An example of a difficult decision was the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the United States made the difficult decision to drop an atomic bomb on Japan rather than invade and risk losing American lives. After declaring war on Japan the United States got rapped into World War II and were no longer just fighting the Japanese.
Although making decisions can be tough at times it is a necessary step to take in order to get the desired end result. Making the decision to fly around the world is more difficult than actually caring out the task for example because many things must go into consideration. Something’s to consider are whether or not you want to risk you life, if it is at all a possibility for you, and if you would get the proper support and encouragement you need. You must conquer your fears and use all of your courage sometimes to create the wealth of self-power needed to solve any difficult decision that comes in your way.
Proposition: Once the difficult decision is made the actual execution is much similar.
Image Source : http://www.badassoftheweek.com/earhart.jpg
IRJ-CP #14 November 4, 2009
A Walk Down Memory Lane
Limp willow branches swayed in a light breeze creating a rhythmic swooshing sound. A young girl sitting under the grand tree watched as her brunette hair blew desultorily across her delicate face. As she lounged under the canopy of leaves, she reflected on her life to that point. She had reaches the pinnacle of her high school years, and she wanted to take a walk down memory lane to revisit the peaks of her life. A bold memory flashed into her mind depicting her as a young freshman. She saw herself standing at the entrance to her new high school, and with a single pang of stoutness she entered the unfamiliar campus. Using all of her power to discreetly pass the senior lockers unnoticed and unharmed she ascended an intimidating set of stairs. Entering her first period she was easily lulled by the biology teachers soporific voice and had a hard time staying focused. As the day continued and finally broke for lunch, her fears of becoming an outcast were quickly pacified as two girls approached her empty lunch table searching for a place to eat. Limp willow branches swayed in a light breeze.
