My Newly Discovered Love for Reading

When I first learned to read just before I started Kindergarten, I was enthralled with it. I picked it up really quickly and really enjoyed it. Whenever we would have visitors come over to our house, I would say "hi," and then I would say, "can I show you how I can read?" I was very proud of my newest accomplishment and wanted to show it to anyone possible. This habit went on for about two years. By the end of the first grade, I had read nearly every single Junie B. Jones and Magic Tree House book there was to read. After this, I think I became bored with reading, and it wasn't quite as exciting. It seemed that there wasn't ever a book that was entertaining enough to capture my attention. I wouldn't ever finish books all the way through for a while. This went on from about second grade to about seventh. This is really devastating because I missed out on so many great novels that I wouldn't even give the time of day.

Then the summer after seventh grade, this bad attitude towards reading started to change. Three of my cousins that live all over the U.S. had a little trip with my grandparents at the end of the summer. We did all sorts of things like hiking, swimming, crabbing, and even white water river rafting. My grandma and grandpa thought it would make things more fun if we all read a book and then discussed it on our trip. All four of us are girls, so they thought it would be fun to read something dramatic like Gone with the Wind. I wasn't too happy about this idea at first because I took one look at the size of it and wanted to give up. The whole thing cover to cover is nearly 1500 pages. In the beginning, I thought that every second of the book would be painful, so I had to make myself a chart that said I would read 35 pages every day to finish by the time we had the trip. It turns out that I didn't need the schedule at all. The second I picked it up, I was completely in love with it. I would lock myself up in my room for hours and read 200 pages straight. It has the most capturing story line that keeps you guessing throughout the whole novel. I fell in love with the characters because they were so complex, and it was a mystery to see what they would do next. I learned a lot of important lessons from that book, and I am grateful that my grandparents challenged us to read this classic novel.

Ever  since then, I decided that I would give books another try. I promised myself that I couldn't stop after the first 20 pages. This was one of the best choices I have ever made. There are so many great stories out there that I had no idea even existed. A big chunk of the last year or two has been spent reading in my window sill and making up for lost time. There isn't anything quite as enjoyable as wrapping up in a blanket and having an adventure by diving into a book. I have loved the books that we have read for Honors English, and I plan to take Honors English throughout high school. I am so happy that I decided to give reading another shot, because there are so many great things in my life that come from the wonderful of books!

"A Tale of Two Cities" Passage Analysis

            A Tale of Two Cities takes place in 1775 at the start of the French Revolution in Paris, France.  The book follows both the lives of people who are at the height of the aristocracy as well as people who are starving French peasants.  Against the backdrop of this time period, Dickens explores many different themes, one of which is revenge.  The following passage about a woman named Madam Defarge, a French Revolutionary, illustrates how revenge is an evil that can completely consume an individual's whole life and mindset.

          "There were many women at the time, upon whom the time laid a dreadfully disfiguring hand; but, there was not one among them more to be dreaded than this ruthless woman, now taking her way along the streets.  Of a strong and fearless character, of shrewd sense and readiness, of great determination, of that kind of beauty which not only seems to impart to its possessor firmness and animosity, but to strike into others an instinctive recognition of those qualities; the troubled time would have heaved her up, under any circumstances.  But, imbued from her childhood with a brooding sense of wrong, and an inveterate hatred of a class, opportunity had developed her into a tigress.  She was absolutely without pity.  If she had ever had the virtue in her, it had quite gone out of her.

          It was nothing to her that an innocent man was to die for the sins of his forefather; she saw, not him, but them.  It was nothing to her that his wife was to be made a widow and his daughter an orphan; that was insufficient punishment, because they were her natural enemies and her prey, and as such had no right to live.  To appeal to her, was made hopeless by her having no sense of pity, even for herself.  If she had been laid low in the streets, in any of the many encounters in which she had been engaged, she would not have pitied herself; nor if she had been ordered to the axe to-morrow, would she have gone to it with any softer feeling that a fierce desire to change places with the man who sent her there." (Book the Third, Pages 365-366)

            As shown in the passage above, Madame Defarge is a woman who has absolutely no pity for anyone or anything.  As a child, her sister was raped and her brother killed by the Marquis St. Evremonde.  In this part of the novel, she is walking down the streets of Paris on her way to denounce Lucie Mannette Darnay, wife of Charles Darnay, the nephew of the Marquis St. Evremonde.   Lucie's husband, Charles, has been accused of being an enemy of the Republic, arrested, and sentenced to the guillotine that day.  Madame Defarge suspects that Lucie will be at home grieving for her husband, and it will therefore be the opportune time to arrest her.  She plans to use the excuse that Lucie is grieving for an enemy of the republic and is therefore guilty of treason and should be sent to the guillotine.  Madame Defarge is determined to exterminate as many Evremonde family members as possible.  She has completely lost her mind, and all she cares for now is revenge against the Evremondes.  She will do anything in her power to get back at the family that made her life miserable as a child.

          The imagery in this passage is so clear that the reader can picture her "great determination" as Madame Defarge moves down the streets of Paris.  Dickens describes her as a "tigress" stalking her "natural enemies and her prey," the aristocratic Evremondes. She is depicted as being "ruthless," having a "shrewd sense and readiness," and an "inveterate hatred."  These powerful adjectives demonstrate to the reader her evil character.  She is a heartless woman whose virtue "ha[s] quite gone out of her."

          This lack of virtue is also portrayed in the dark tone that Dickens uses in this passage.  His harshly descriptive words and phrases convey an overall sense of cruelty and viciousness.  Through Dickens' tone, the reader feels the brutal nature of Madame Defarge's desire for vengeance.        

          Though these two paragraphs are but a small part of A Tale of Two Cities, they represent the theme of revenge.  Dickens seems to suggest that not forgiving another can tear a person apart.  Failing to forget past mistakes can become more than just wanting revenge.  In the case of Madame Defarge, this lack of forgiveness becomes the purpose of her life.   Her character conveys to the reader the all-consuming nature of spite.  As demonstrated in this passage, Dickens' novel seems to warn the reader against getting caught up in the need for revenge.

Romeo and Juliet

I've always loved learning about Shakespeare. When I was in sixth grade, I had the opportunity to be a part of a play at my elementary called,"Snippets from Shakespeare." Each class in the sixth grade performed five different scenes from Shakespeare's plays. I played the part of Laertes in the "Hamlet" fight scene. Back then, I remember I really enjoyed reading Shakespeare's works. It's really fun to decode the complicated writing figure out what it means in modern day English. When you first look at a passage from his writing, it looks so deep, and you think that there is no possible way that you could ever understand it. Then if you use your brain a little bit, and figure out all of the metaphors in the writing, it isn't too hard to decode. Shakespeare has so many great things that are written in his plays, and once I could understand what in the heck he was talking about, I learned some really cool things.

One of the days while we were reading Romeo and Juliet, we looked at many different quotes for our "Quote of the Day" in Mr. Thompson's class. Almost every little saying had some great advice that we should all learn to follow. One of my favorite ones said, "A light heart lives long." You wouldn't think that something this simple could have so much truth in it. There were many other great quotes that gave good advice about honesty and other life choices.

I feel like my writing has gotten much better since we started reading Shakespeare. His plays make you realize that you can create a masterpiece with words that we use every day of our lives. Of course, there are also some really great insults added into his writing. It can be difficult to make it rhyme at times and to make the words fit just right. After a lot of rearranging and changing up some words, I wrote a sonnet for my wiki assignment. I decided that I didn't want to write a letter or a journal entry because I knew everyone would do that, and I wanted mine to be different. Once I made a word pool of words that rhyme, I chose to speak from Friar Laurence's point of view, and I got the general idea of what I wanted to say, it wasn't so hard to put the words down onto paper. So, here is my sonnet that I wrote from the point of view of Friar Laurence about trying to decide whether or not to marry Romeo and Juliet.


                                                      Friar Laurence's Sonnet 

"He's mad," thought I, when Romeo first crossed my door,
Real love? Is it conceivable whilst meeting but last night?
Could Romeo without his Juliet consider himself poor?
In the sight of God, could the love they share be right?
One from the house of Capulet, the other Montague,
Their young love discovered, would not their parents please.
If conjoined in matrimony, lethal would be the feud.
Young lovers, their minds held captive, do not think of things like these.
I could believe this love is true, but how with endless woes?
Doth youthful passion possess the power to overcome such strife?
The Montagues, though warring, must accept the House of Rose,
Or else this life-long prejudice could turn them toward the knife.
Though Juliet is but a girl, and Romeo just a young boy,
Perhaps the union of these two could bring about some joy.

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

In Mr. Carter's class, we are learning about the Middle East. It is a little coincidental that we are learning about it when there is all of the conflict happening over there right now. There are so many problems in Egypt, Libya, and of course there is always trouble happening in Israel. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been going on ever since 1948 when Israel was officially made a country, and the Jews were given the land. Both groups of people believe that the land rightfully belongs to them, and there are definitely two different sides to the story. The Israelis believe it is theirs because they were promised the land as the promised land. The Palestinians don't believe it is fair that the Israeli people can come and take over their land after they have been living there for centuries. There is always conflict between the two groups over the tiny little country of Israel. There have been many attempts at how to solve the problem, and there have been many different ideas about how to end the fighting. This is my paper that I wrote about the solutions to the conflict.


                
                Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

There have been so many attempts for peace for the tiny piece of land in the Middle East. There has been fighting going on for more than 60 years for the country of Israel, when it became a country in 1948. The Israelis and the Palestinians both believe that the country belongs to them. The Palestinian people have lived there ever since the Diaspora. Then when the United Nations created the country of Israel, they told all of the Jews that they could come live there because it had been promised to them.

        The two groups of people both have reasons to believe that it is rightfully their own land. It seems obvious that if both of these people are fighting over the same piece of land, they should just split it right down the middle and give half to the Israelis and half to the Palestinians. This method of splitting the country in half is called the "two state solution." However, it is not quite that simple because both groups cherish the city of Jerusalem and do not want to give it up. This is one solution that could possibly work for solving the conflict.

        Another way that they could solve the problem is by moving one group completely out of the country. This would be a very difficult solution because it would nearly be impossible to move an entire group out of the country. It is not likely that any of the surrounding countries would be willing to let the Israelis or Palestinians come in and invade their land. All of countries that surround Israel hate the Israeli's guts, and it is not likely that their opinion will change anytime soon.

        There have been many different ideas for ways to solve the conflict over the tiny little country of Israel. It would be very difficult to make both groups of people happy, but maybe there will be a time when the issue will be solved. It would be hard to make it fair for both sides of the conflict.

The shrieking sounds that are often heard at the Sargent household

It seems like whenever someone asks me to write anything about a certain person I always end up choosing my little sister Kate. I remember in English at the beginning of the year, Mr. Thompson asked us to write something about an interesting person that we knew well. Kate somehow pops into my brain when I think of people that are interesting and definitely unique. Then again she came into my thoughts when we wrote poems in English about a month ago. I made the decision to write my poem about my uncommon sister that I have the opportunity to spend time with each and every waking hour. I spent some time coming up with words that rhymed, and then wrote it out into poetry form. My dad helped with some of the rhyming patterns one night, and Kate came up and asked us what we were doing. Don't worry, we were pretty sneaky, and I don't believe she suspected anything, and she probably never will. That's just the kind of person she is; once she know that is has nothing to do with her, she's not interested and completely checks out and clues back into her own world. She is very adorable at times, but you will now see why she can be a tad difficult to share the same space with this little girl.

My deafening little sister Kate,

 You could never call her a bore.

She's been shrieking every second

Since the moment she was born.

Kate is weeping and she's wailing

About every little thing.

Since she's making noise so often,

Simply, we've stopped asking.

She roars when she if full of rage,

At times she weeps in sorrow;

No matter what the crisis is,

It won't be fixed tomorrow.

What to expect from a 7-year old?

She rarely thinks rationally;

Sometimes things make sense in her head,

If not, she's heard nationally.

I would cry too if I dropped my spoon

 Well doesn't it make sense?

"She doesn't shriek when it's time to eat,"

 It's been said in her defense.

Although she often causes problems

And stirs up a mess each day;

Her blonde curls and blue eyes are charming

And in your heart she will stay.

Not only does she shriek about a lot of things, but she can also be heard around the house while she is singing to her High School Musical. She loves to exercise her strong vocal cords especially with her beautiful singing voice. I'm convinced that she will be the next Hannah Montana with her voice and acting abilities. 

As I'm writing this right now, what do you think she's doing? You got it, she's yelling at the top of her lungs at my sister, who still hasn't heard her after five minutes of constant shouting. However, even though she can be the biggest pain in the world at times, I wouldn't trade her for anything in the world. When she isn't busy whining about something, she is so sweet. She leaves me darling little notes all around my room that brighten up my day. What can I say, our family just wouldn't be the same without Kate.