This Is The End || Final Blog Post

Question: 
Is the main character of your book a hero?


When you read a book, almost always you can consider the main character a hero. Infact, even if the book is written from the villains perspective, you still see him as a hero because he justifies his actions. But, in the book "Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger, Holden is probably the opposite of a hero. He is a whiny teenager who has so many life issues he cares about, but has no interest of seeking them out and solving them.
The book doesn't seem to have any actual story line, and really does seem to be the very average journal of an average teen. 

Holden's main issue through out the book is understanding the innocence and authenticity of childhood, as represented by Holden's sister, Phoebe, against the phoniness, as Holden sees it, of most adults (Mr. Antolini, for example). Holden is neither a child nor a grownup, and resists maturation, a process he sees as characterized by loss rather than growth. He believes that at some point in ones life, your interest in the outside world is lost, and you become extremely self absorbed. “The best thing, though, in that museum was that everything always stayed right where it was. Nobody'd move. You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and they're pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket. Nobody's be different. The only thing that would be different would be you. Not that you'd be so much older or anything. It wouldn't be that, exactly. You'd just be different, that's all. You'd have an overcoat this time. Or the kid that was your partner in line the last time had got scarlet fever and you'd have a new partner. Or you'd have a substitute taking the class, instead of Miss Aigletinger. Or you'd heard your mother and father having a terrific fight in the bathroom. Or you'd just passed by one of those puddles in the street with gasoline rainbows in them. I mean you'd be different in some way—I can't explain what I mean. And even if I could, I'm not sure I'd feel like it.” This is just one example of Holden's extreme laziness. He sees so many issues in society that nobody else notices, but instead of doing something, ANYTHING, he chooses to just sit on his butt all day and hope that somebody else noticed it too.

An example of Holden not being the hero of the story is is incredible annoyance with females. I most books, the "hero" is often very glamorous, or somehow gets the girl by the end of the story. But Holden is most definitely not like that. He treats girls like objects, things without feelings. He always goes on these rants about girls being whores, but its somehow justified to be a whore if you are pretty. “That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy. They really can.” He gives compliments and then ruins them in a snap. He will say something so horrible to a girl or call her up at 4:00 in the morning to hook up, and then abandon the conversation midway. He is, all in all, the perfect definition of a selfish bastard (please excuse my language).

I think the reason Holden has such a hard time in life, in friends, and in love is because he spends so much time criticizing other people and then doesn't have time to see the flaws in himself. All in all, he is an incredibly interesting person. He has so many sides to his personality, and this makes him seem very real, and very much relatable. The charm in this book that many people choose to ignore is its obvious "realness" . Holden is overly stressed, depressed, and has a hard life choosing his path, something that not m,any people have been able to capture in their stories. When reading this book, many wanted a story mountain, climax, and when they saw that their wasn't one, the book became uninteresting and bland. But, you really have to look deeper and when you do, you will see that Holden is not very different from you, and thats when you realize that a life check is majorly overdue, for everybody.

Nonfiction Response // No More Pay Phones?

According to the article No More Pay Phones? by the Upfront Magazine, today there are about 48,000 phone booths left, from the 92,000 at their peak in 2002, and only about 10,000 are still in London. Iconic traits like this, in my opinion, should never be removed. They make up a cities characteristics, and that makes a huge impact on the society. Imagine removing the apple logo from New York City or the golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. The red phone booth is a part of the culture and history of the UK, and should therefore never be removed.

Every city has its own unique "traits", whether its a landmark, and accent, o a street, there is always one in every city. The United Kingdom, for example, has its iconic red telephone boxes, which are a common representation of the UK. But, with the advancements in technology, cellphones and other communication devices are making the pay phone use plummet by 80%.

In the article No More Pay Phones?, the author states that people are using the pay phones less and less, which is a major cause of their downfall. The advancement in technology always comes with a price, and in this case, the price we have to pay is the loss of the iconic phone booth. Its use is very much for memory and not as much for actually calling people, because now most people own cellphones as they come in all shapes and sizes and can even be personally customized to fit your needs. The phone booth, on the other hand, is purely there for those times when your phone ran out of battery, or some other rare disaster. So people have been recycling the pay phones to keep their power alive. There have been notices of the pay phones being turned into mini-librairies, couches, art galleries, and ATM's.

The red phone booth is a major example of people forgetting their history, and we need to keep this memory alive to be able to remember the past. A photo may be word a 1,000 words, but an experience is worth one million. Even though phone booths are becoming out of date, they have a unique power different from the modern day cellphones, as they are relics of the past, and need to be protected. We aren't going to demolish historical buildings just because they are going out of date, so why should we get rid of the phone booth? we need to protect our history. as it makes us the people we are now.

Final Poetry Assignment

She lifts her head as
her hair spins around her body,
Her spinning tutu a river
of pink.
The sparkling crown on her head
glitters under the hot spotlight,
making a tiny dot of sweat
brake out on her forehead.
The crowd gasps as she leaps high
into the air,
her arms spread like a birds wings.
Her smile captivates
the audience but
her eyes are stormy and
dark.
The girls backstage applaud
as they normally do,
but the ballerina knows that they
don't care at all.
Petals slip from her dress
as she twirls faster and faster
grasping at the slightest
bit of attention
before she slips on a piece
of satin
and falls down
down
down,
her hurricane of dance complete.




     The process of writing this poem involved a painting by Edgar Degas "The Star". I have loved this painting since i was little, and i remember spending hours with my mom looking at Degas' paintings in museums. When I found out that we had to write a poem based on a panting, I knew from the very first moment that "the Star" was the painting that i would use. The thing that always caught my attention with this painting was the dancers body language and expression. Her smile was very big and caught your attention, but for some reason I always found her eyes dark and angry. I based this poem on the feeling I got from the painting, which was the background for every sentence.

     I have learned to channel my feelings to create a story with limited words from this poetry unit. I have always loved poetry, but i feel that the assignments presented in this unit were very fun and really got you to push past your comfort zone. All of my poems used to be very scenic without much of a story, and they used to be focussed very much around rhythm and rhyme. But, during this unit, I have learned that poetry isn't all about the sounds, but it is also about the stories you tell and the impression you leave on the reader.

Reading Response on Poetry || Draft #2

Many times in life, you should read poems as if eating candy; short, sweet, and enjoyable for those minutes while eating them. The poem Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins shows you just how much the mind over-analyzes the literature that we read. A simple sentence can quickly turn from being scenic to being a long metaphor for some hidden message. The narrator wants you to realize that often its good to enjoy reading poems without over-analyzing the words written in them.

One important observation I discovered while reading the poem is that people should interact with poems in a carefree manner. "I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out," [Collins 5-6]. The narrator states that people should interact with the poem while reading it. They should explore the sentences and focus on their sounds and creativity instead of diving down too deep and putting themselves in a position where all they want to do is kill the poems beauty and find its "meaning". It is a natural behavior of a human being to want to find out what a poem means and to be the first one to think in such a "creative" manner. But when if you ask the author what they meant, it may happen that all they will tell you is that the poems message is not what you had thought it was, and it may have been 10x simpler than you made it become.

A lot of the time, by looking too deeply for the poems "moral", people forget to focus on the important things in a piece of writing, such as its beauty and verbal tranquility. "But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with a rope and torture a confession out of it," [Collins 13-15] Often, people don't appreciate the simplicity of words and twist them around to make them mean something more than they actually do. The author states that most people have the tendency to overthink things, which leads to stretching out the morals of the writing into something they are not, and making the individuality of the writing become lost in time and space. I have seen myself doing the same thing the narrator talks about many times. In school, we are taught to analyze and develop our ideas to the point of focusing on only on the big picture instead of the small details that make the story enjoyable and interesting to read. 

Although, yes, it is important to find the lessons in a story to learn from them and grow as people, we need to also accept the fact that the poem might be just a random story the author created that has no lesson whatsoever. It may not have a 'deeply hidden moral' that you have to spend days searching for, and might just be. It may have a moral, it may not, but you as your own individual being have to choose whether to look, or to simply enjoy and move on.

Why can't we all, for once, just read for pleasure and forget all of these rules that make us analyze instead of focusing on the importance of scenery and language, which makes the book a piece of art instead of a mystery novel? The text Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins summarizes people because of the traits that are discussed that show our compulsive nature to analyze and dissect poems, and literature in general.  Readers should see that letting go and drifting away from rules can be a good thing, and can help you learn to actually enjoy reading.

Reading Response on Poetry || Draft 1

Often, poems should be read as if eating candy; short, sweet, and enjoyable for those minutes while eating them. The poem Introduction to Poetry by Billy Collins shows you just how much the mind over-analyzes the literature that we read. A simple sentence can quickly turn from being  scenic to being a long metaphor for some hidden message. The narrator wants you to realize that often its good to enjoy reading poems without over-analyzing the words written in them.

One important observation i had while reading the poem is that people should interact with poems in a carefree manner. "I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out," [Collins 5-6]. This quote shows that people should interact with the poem while reading it. They should explore the sentences and focus on their sounds and creativity instead of diving down too deep and putting themselves in a position where all they want to do is kill the poems beauty and find its "meaning". It is a natural behavior of a human being to want to find out what a poem means and to be the first one to think in such a "creative" manner, when if you ask the author what they meant, all they  will tell you is that is poem message is not what you thought it was, and it may have been 10x simpler than you made it be.

A lot of the time, by looking too deeply for the poems "moral", people forget to focus on the important things in a poem, like its beauty and verbal tranquility. "But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with a rope and torture a confession out of it," [Collins 13-15] Often, people don't appreciate the simplicity of words and twist them around to make them mean something more than they actually do. The author states that most people have the tendency to overthink things, which leads to stretching out the morals of the literature into something they are not, and making the individuality of the writing become lost in time and space. I have seen myself doing the same thing the narrator talks about many times. In school, we are taught to analyze and develop our ideas to the point of focussing on only on the big picture instead of the small details that make the story enjoyable and interesting to read.

Why can't we all, for once, just read for pleasure and forget all of this rules that make us analyze instead of focussing on the importance of scenery and language, which makes the book a piece of art instead of a mystery novel? The text summarizes the people because of the traits that are discussed that show our compulsive nature to analyze and dissect poems, and literature in general.  Readers should see that letting go and drifting away from rules can be a good thing, and can help you enjoy reading.

Reading Response || Character Resistance

Sometimes i feel as if the idea of resistance to characters in the story can change within one sentence. In the book The Nine Lives Of Chloe King by Liz Braswell tells the story of young Chloe King, who finds out that she is a descendant of the ancient Mai tribe, a generation of the gods with physical and mental attributes of cats. When she is found by other Mai, she is taken in by Sergei, a supposedly wonderful character who acts like the father Chloe has never had. But, as the story progresses, you see the faltering in his happy personality, and wonder how good of a person he really is.

At first, i thought that Sergei would protect Chloe and make her feel welcome and protected from all of the enemies that she accumulated. It states on page 396, "Sergei couldn't refuse a thing to his adopted daughter...". In the beginning/middle of the story, Sergei is the most idealistic father figure a girl like Chloe could ever have. He cares for her, entertains her, keeps her company, and all in all is there to guide her. At this time in the book, I felt no resistance to him because he seemed perfect. But, now that i think about it, there never is a "perfect". So, therefore, i realize that while reading i did have an ominous feeling that something bad was going to happen, because there can never be a truly idealistic person in an idealistic situation.

But, when Sergei let loose his bullet during the fight between the clans, i could immediately tell that the bullet was meant for Chloe. I know that Chloe herself doubted herself when similar thoughts flashed through her mind, but i really feel that this was the case. "Sergei had let out a shot, but Chloe still wasn't sure who the bullet had been meant for. Had it really been aimed at Brian and not her mom? Could it have been meant for Chloe?" [p. 546]. I think that Sergei did indeed intend the bullet to hit Chloe. I think this because shooting Chloe could mean one of two things: killing Chloe, or proving that she is the One. Being The One would mean that Chloe would usurp Sergei's leadership and become the clans spiritual leader, and he would get lost in the sand of time. I feel that Sergei's personality is one that makes him seem very stubborn and overall not a pleasant person once you see his inner thoughts, so this also adds to my resistance towards his character.

This is it. The moment when a major spoiler alert is revealed. heh... I WAS RIGHT!! As i have spent a couple days writing this response, i have read more and more of the book and learnt that even if Sergei's bullet was or wasn't meant for Chloe, he still wants her killed. As i found out on page 521-522, Sergei does want her killed, just as he wanted the previous One to get murdered as well. He is a power-hungry man who seems to be wiling to do anything to create a world where he is the king and everyone bows down to him and ONLY him. Chloe is just a nuisance in the way of his mighty plans. I feel that all in all, my prediction was correct, and i was right to feel resistance to him based on the small clues that the author gave the readers, like me.

Resistance to characters is very common, but when you feel resistance to someone who is considered a good guy, i believe that it is good to look into your feeling and try to figure out why you feel this way. i  think that the way the author made you feel resistance towards Sergei from the very beginning shows her successes in her writing career as she is able to craft fully incorporate a suspicion into her words. A resistance can tell you many things about yourself, and i feel that you could learn about yourself from it. 

The Rant for the Ugly Girls

The beautiful girl walks down the street,
carrying her school picture she received that morning.
Her cloud of friends
giggles around her, but shushes
 when she does something as simple
as raise her pinkie.
The girls walk by the wannabe and pull her over, asking
to see her picture.
The wannabe shows her the picture to receive
a bunch of smirks from the girls.
She asks to see the main girls picture
who says she can't show her because hers is too
awful.
As she says it, all her friends go
No you're perfect what are you talking about
don't even start to say that your
fat because you are so skinny and popular can i be you?


All that work for just a compliment?
Nahhh
Compliments should be truthful, not just random pieces of
remarks people say to cheer you up. Saying
"You're gorgeous" without meaning
anything is just blah.
Its not that hard to open your mouth and say
"Shut up you're pretty"
Its only four words. I think we can all say that.
People should compliment you without wanting
anything in return. Cheering somebody up on a bad day
is one thing, but every single day is something
very different.
Its you wanting to be a good friend and sadly
a lot of the time, you may feel that
the compliment was completely not needed


But the absolute worst thing
is when somebody says completely nonchalantly
"You guys are so lucky that you are all so pretty"
without being asked,
and in return,
they see your pleased face saying
"What do you mean pretty?
I'm soooo ugly"
Come on. Was that really necessary?
No.
It wasn't.
JUST TAKE THE COMPLIMENT JEEZ!!
Its not a difficult task!
Just say aww, thank you
and MOVE ON ALREADY!!
Celebrate internally instead of making
others give you more compliments than necessary.

Don't be annoying and just take the pat on the back and
MOVE ON!