Revenge

After answering the discussion question about revenge this week, I kept thinking about revenge and the awful things that it can cause. I have now finished "A Tale of Two Cities," and there are so many great examples of revenge in the book. The character of Madame Defarge becomes so caught up in repaying the aristocracy of France that she turns herself into an evil, bloodthirsty woman who cares about nothing else. The want to have revenge on the noblemen completely overtakes and consumes her to the point where she only wants to kill everyone that has anything to do with that class of people. I have found some great quotes about revenge and what can happen if we do not forgive. After each one I will explain what they have to do with Madame Defarge and and what the price of revenge can be.

 “Revenge is sweeter than life itself. So think fools.”
-Juvenal

  Throughout the book, Madame Defarge tries to convince herself of this statement and that her life will be happier if she takes revenge on the aristocracy of France. She is turned into a fool by thinking this is true.

“There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.”
-Josh Billings

 This quote is so true, but Madame Defarge is too proud to realize that forgiveness might be a better option for her bitterness. She has buried herself so deep into the revolution that she thinks it is much too late for forgiveness now. She is not willing to forgive the children of the people that were awful to her family. Even though Charles Darnay is innocent, she can't see past the fact that he is a descendant of the Evremonde family.

 “By taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing over it, he is superior.”
 -Unknown

This quote tells us that we can be the bigger person if we forgive and forget the wrong things people have done to us. Madame Defarge is not in the least bit willing to forget the things that the Evremonde brothers for the pain that they caused her to suffer as a young girl. She would rather become even with her enemies by causing them to die rather than become superior to them by forgiving them.

 “Those who plot the destruction of others often fall themselves.
-Phaedrus

There isn't a quote that could come closer to resembling what happens to Madame Defarge at the end of the book. She is so caught up in causing other people to fall that she never thinks twice about the fact that she could be killed herself. She is consumed with taking revenge and so like this quote says, she falls herself from being shot by Miss Pross.

Reading "A Tale of Two Cities" has really helped to see how revenge can kill just as strongly as a gun shot. The revolutionaries in the book want to take revenge so badly that they are driven by repaying the aristocracy, and they can't think about anything else. The French Revolution is an event in history that I hope we can learn from, and that we won't be so bloodthirsty for revenge that it will take over our lives. 

For Good

          Last November, my mom, my sister, and I took a girls trip out to San Francisco to see the Broadway play, "Wicked."  It was not only a really fun trip because of all the fun things that we got to do, but it seemed that after walking out of the theater, I felt changed in a way. The whole play has many different lessons that it teaches us, and I learned a lot of things while watching it. I have to say that there is one song it particular, "For Good," that taught some very important lessons.  The lyrics have some very important messages to share. I found them and have now copied them down onto this page:

I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you...

Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good


It well may be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By being my friend...

Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a skybird
In a distant wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you

Because I knew you
I have been changed for good

And just to clear the air
I ask forgiveness
For the things I've done you blame me for

But then, I guess we know
There's blame to share

And none of it seems to matter anymore

Who can say if I've been
Changed for the better?
I do believe I have been
Changed for the better

Because I knew you

I have been changed for good

I have thought about these lyrics over and over again in my head. It isn’t just about the similes, the rhyming words, and the bitter-sweet phrases that it contains. This song tells us many important things about choosing our friends and how to treat them if you want to keep them. At the beginning, it has some important lines, including the following, “I’ve heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason, bringing something we must learn.
And we are led to those who help us most to grow if we let them,
and we help them in return.”

          I believe that certain people are put into our lives for reasons. A lot of those people are here to teach us the lessons that we need to learn in life. This may be true, but I think that it’s hard for us to realize that these people are here to help us. We may get annoyed by these individuals who want to make us better and teach us what we should do, especially when those people are our parents. It also says in those lines that we will only grow if we help those people in return. I think that we all could do a better job of realizing what people do for us each and every day and giving back to those who sacrifice for us.

          I also like the very last lines that read, “Because I knew you, I have been changed for good.” These words have so much that they can teach us. I hope that we can all try to do a little better at being nice to people and helping them out. I know that I want people to be changed for the better because they knew me. I think that we can all want to be better each and every day, so that we can change other for good. I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to go to San Francisco and see this amazing musical because it reminds that I can be better every day.

Biology Essay

In my wonderful biology class, one of the options for our term projects is to write four essays on scientific magazine articles. This option sounded better to me than finding science comics and writing a paragraph about each. It also sounded more enjoyable than reading a book about a disease that made people have giant sores and gaping holes everywhere on their bodies. This sounded like the best option to me, so this is one of my fantastic science essays that I have written. It may not be perfect, but then again my biology teacher will take one glance at it and if it looks like it has five paragraphs, I will probably get a perfect score.

October 2010                  

Amber Angelle

Hurricane News

            Can you believe that the wind can travel over 150 miles per hour? All over the world, places get completely destroyed from these winds that come from the sea called hurricanes. Hurricanes can be extremely dangerous and can demolish hundreds of miles of our earth's surface. Scientists have been studying the ways that hurricanes start, what happens while they are happening, and possibly some of the factors that cause hurricanes to start.

            The scientists that have been researching this topic of hurricanes have found many different things. They have learned about the eye, which is the center of the hurricane and is in the middle of everything that's happening. The next part outside of the eye is called the eyewall. The eyewall is actually much more powerful than the eye itself because the eye is in the middle and does not carry much force. The eyewall is full of heavy rains and extremely fast winds. Scientists have also been studying whether the temperatures of the earth have any affect on how frequently hurricanes occur. They have found that heat will not cause more hurricanes, but when they come they will be much more powerful than normal.

            I believe that it is very important that we have recorded some of these facts that will help us to learn more about the danger of hurricanes and how serious they are. This information could help us with safety in the future when hurricanes are going on around us. If we learn more and more about them, then it will be easier to protect ourselves and fight against them. There are some very interesting things that have been found in this research, and some of the stuff is things that we should know.

            There are things called Cyclone Cylinders that are found in the eyewall and they stir the hurricane up to be bigger and more powerful. It gives the winds an energy-boost and when Cyclone Cylinders are helping the hurricane, the storm can be intensified to become a category 5. It is very interesting that the eye of the hurricane isn't the strongest point, but that the eyewall is much more powerful and can do more damage to the area that it is destroying. I hope that we can use this information and learn even more in the future.

             This new information from scientist's research can help us immensely with our knowledge about hurricanes. We can't stop these terrors from coming, but now we know how they work and what their plan is.