Chapter 2 of Tao Te Ching

I really enjoyed this chapter, but I was not able to interact as much as I wish I could have in the class discussion. This chapter tells us how we create things in life without even thinking about it. My favorite part was when it says, "Calling something "good" forces you to call some other things "evil." I like this, because it applies to everyone everyday. If instead of labeling things as good and bad, we just take everything as a normal part of life. This way we would never see the bad, but we would also not see the good. This is a theory that I know I could not live by, but it is interesting to think about.

5 Quotes from The Little Prince

"Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them." I like this quote, because it gives a look into a child's perspective. While people might think adults get bothered with trying to pry information from children, it is actually the children that are bothered that the adults do not get what they are saying.

"I have lived a great deal among grown-ups. I have seen them intimately, close at hand. And that hasn’t much improved my opinion of them." This quote is a lot like the first one, but it kind of has a dark feeling to it. It has that, because while he does not like how adults act with children, it is inevitable that he will become an adult one day.

"To forget a friend is sad. Not every one has had a friend. And if I forget him, I may become like the grown-ups who are no longer interested in anything but figures…" This quote makes me think of my friends and the relationships I have with them and how I will never forget them. In the quote, it is said that adults are only concerned with figures, which it may seem like to children, but it is not always true.

“Well, I must endure the presence of two or three caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies. It seems that they are very beautiful.” This quote is very simple. It is saying that, in life, one must endure hardships and bad times to reach beauty or satisfaction.

“What makes the desert beautiful,” said the little prince, “is that somewhere it hides a well…” I really like this quote, because it shows the innocence of children. They think some very strange and funny thoughts that are usually not logical. However, this quote can mean that no matter how much one will search, they will never find what they really want.

"Eva Is Inside of Her Cat"

In this short story, a young lady upset with her physical appearance takes her own life. One would think she took her life, becasue she was ugly, but Eva was a very beautiful. She took her own life, because she hated that, because she was good looking she could not meet a guy for the right reasons or be taken seriously by people in general. Eva took her life to escape from her curse of beauty. However, once she was dead she found herself trapped in an even worse position than she was in while she was alive. Her situation reminds me of Marquez's home country, Colombia. It is like a metaphor for the country and the war it is going through. While she wanted to try and escape from her unfortunate situation, she found hrself trapped in an even worse situation for eternity.

Futurism was a movement that originated in Italy, but was also present in Russia, England and other places. It started in the early 20th century and delt with most facets of art including music, painting, film fashion and several more. The creator and most influential person in Futurism was the Italian writer Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.

Different Avantgarde Movements

The Surrealism part of the Avantgarde movement was started mostly by Andre Breton who started this by writing "Manifesto of Surrealism." Surrealism is also closely related to Dadaism, which emphasizes absurdity and the function of chance.

Eating Disorders in America

SENIORS!!!

This is my first post in a while, but I dont imagine that anything has changed. I have started my final year of highschool and I am excited, but i cant believe that all that time has passed so quickly. But hopefully this year will be another great one.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Bernice Bobs Her Hair"

In class a few days a go, we watched a short film called "Bernice Bobs Her Hair." The idea for this film was taken from F.Scott Fitzgerald's story. "Bernice" is a film that shows an out-of-place adolescent staying with her much more socially gifted cousin. Her cousin teachers her how to be liked and accepted by people of their own age, and ends up creating a monster. This was a very enjoyable film that showed the worries of teenagers in that timeperiod and the struggles they go through to try and be accepted. I enjoyed this movie, because although the movie was very old, the issues that teens in that age faced are very similar to what teens face today.

Robert Frost

Robert Frost is an American poet that was born in San Francisco, California in 1874. His poetry is a very classic style that is very easy to understand. While Robert Frost's poetry is deep and still makes one think, his poems are fairly simple in the manner that he usually comes right out and says what he means. While William Carlos Williams writes very short, abstarct, and wierd poems, Frost writes in a manner that is very easy to interperet and even easier to comprehend. I enjoyed Frost's Fire and Ice poem, because I think it is one of the few works that actually gives insight into what he believes.

The Red Wheelbarrow

This is a poem Written by Williams Carlos Williams. At first look, this poem seems like a meaningless poem that makes no sense. However, even after the first time one reads it, one can sense a slight feeling of pain. Knowing the background for this poem greatly helps the understanding of Williams and the poem. Williams was visiting a terminally ill girl in the hospital, trying to cheer her up and make her last moments enjoyable. While he was there she died. He looked out the window and saw a red wheelbarrow sitting in the, next to some white chickens. This poem was a way of keeping her memory alive and showing the frailness of life.

William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams was an American poet that wrote in a different, yet simple way. His poems were very abstract and usually focused on one thing. Most of his poems are short, but have a very unclear point to them. He writes in a manner that anyone could, but he did it first and that is why he was famous. Just his name give you an idea that he is a little strange or from a strange family.

Research Project

1) a) I learned that Simon Wiesenthal was relentless in everything that he did. He searched for over 7 years trying to find Adolf Eichmann, and he finally did. Also after he was freed from the concentration camps, he worked furiously to try get a job as an enforcer of justice. And lastly he worked hard to build his agency, which locates Nazi war criminals, the strongest it could be.

b) I learned that thoroughly reading your sources just one time is not enough. One must read them several times to find all the needed information. I also had to learn to take things that I found and prove them through other sources.

2) In some ways it helped me because I became a better writer and it made me better at finding reliable sources and using MLA format. However, I did my research paper mostly on the life of Simon Wiesenthal, so I was not forced to do too much analysis, like we do in class.

Research Project Information.

This is a timeline I made for my research paper on Simon Wiesenthal. I got a lot of this information from one of his books called, "The Murderers Among Us." He interests me because of his strength and preserverance to make it through nazi death camps and to then bring in nazi war criminals for persecution.


Simon Wiesenthal
Born- December 31, 1908 in Buczacz
Early childhood was good, father well known for trading sugar and other wholesale commodities. When the first world war broke out his father was called to duty and died in action in 1917. his remaining family sought refuge in Austria. When the Russians pulled out of Austria, they moved back to Buczacs.
1925- his mother remarries and moves with Simon’s brother to the Carpathian mountains.
1927- he graduates high school, attended Technical university in Prague
1932- graduates from the university with a degree in architectural engineering
1934-35- he is an apprentice in Kharkov and Kiev, Russia. Then spends the rest of his apprenticeship in Odessa
1936- Returns to Galicia and Marries Cyla Muller
1939- Germans invade
1941- saved from execution by a Ukranian Auxilary Policeman
1942- his mother dies in Belzec
1943- escaped from Janowska just before they killed the inmates.
1944- Recaptured by the Gestapo
1946- Simon and Cyla have their only child Pauline
1947- he and 30 other volunteers founded the Jewish Documation Center
1947-1962- studying on war criminals and aiding those in need of help from WW2.
1962- Adolph Eichmann is executed
1970’s- gets involved in Australian politics
1975- Wiesenthall accused of working with the Nazi’s and Gestapo
1982- received many death threats including a bomb left by German and Austrian neo-Nazi’s
2003(April)- retires
2003(November)- wife dies of natural causes
September 20, 2005- Simon Wiesenthall dies.

Test Corrections

2) Transcendentalism is a philosophy that emphasizes the importance of knowledge and experience or the unknowable character of ultimate reality or that emphasizes the transcendent as the fundamental reality.

10) Hawthorne's deffinition of a romance is the probably and ordinary course of man's experience. He tried to create a realm midway between private thought and the objective world.

19) Hester Prynne is associated with transcendentalism because she shows human experiences and the unknown future.

Dimmesdale represents romanticism, because of his unknown love for Hester and his self affliction.

Preface to Leaves of Grass

America does not ignore its past mistakes, but instead learns from them. New, successful ideas spring from the old and unsuccessful ones. The new ideas are brought about by the younger generations, but are not revealed for some time, because the ideas must be tuned and polished to ensure that they will work. The new ideas take the tone of the younger, more ordered generation. The thoughts and ideas are a mirror into the feelings of that time.

Edgar Allan Poe (Info)

Edgar Allan Poe was born in 1809 on January 19. He wrote dark and scary stories, most think because of his wifes sickness and early death. As a young adult in college, he owed many gambleing debts and was not given any money from his father. He was forced to withdraw from college. He started writing in a difficult time for writers, and it was right after his brother died. His life is very eventful and I will cover more of it in my final paper.

Edgar Allan Poe

I chose Edgar Allan Poe as the topic for my research paper, because I have read some of his stories before and they are interesting to me. I think it will be easy to research, because I already know a lot about him and most of his stories are dark and scary. I like Poe and I look forward to this project.

The Minister's Vigil

Chapter 12 of the Scarlet Letter is one of the most meaningful chapters so far, and it also has several hidden meanings. While Dimmesdale, Pearl, and Hester are standing in a cirlce, while holding hands, this shows how they are all connected. The circle represents that the knowledge of their connection is only known to those in the circle. Also Chillingworth in the distance while there is a storm starting shows the bad things that are to come that have to do with Chillingworth.





Also, for my Project, I think I want to do Edgar Allan Poe.

The Elf-Child and the Minister

In this chapter, Hester is questioned by Bellingham, Wilson, Chillingworth about if she is a suitable parent for Pearl. They are thinking about separating Pearl from Hester, but Hester convinces Dimmesdale to lobby to the others that she is a suitable parent. By doing this, I think he is showing his weakness towards Hester. This makes me think he might be the father of Pearl, because he is constantly sticking up for them in this chapter. I hope he reveals his secret soon though, beause he needs to support Hester and Pearl.

Hester at Her Needle

Hester is made very aware of the difficulty that will come by staying in Boston, because of the harsh feelings people show towards her. Even though she could easily leave and make a new home, where nobody knows her business, she decides that she needs to stay because of her child's father. She sees this man as her real husband and feels she has to stay in the same place as him so that maybe one day her daughter will have a father. Hester is very brave for enduring as much as she does over the years. She could have moved away and started a completely new life however she wanted, but through the insults and evil stares she decides it is the best idea for her daughter. Hester doesn't sit around all day and act depressed because no one likes her, she goes out and tries to find a job that can suit her talent with sewing. However, no one will buy her materials because of the wrongs she has commited. This leaves Hester doing volunteer work and other odd jobs, while constantly being insulted.

The Recognition

In this chapter, Chillingworth shows up at the scaffold where Hester is standing. Then Hesyter is questioned by Reverend Dimmesdale about who the true father is. I find it corageous of Hester ti stand up there, all alone, and refuse to give up the name. I think it shows that she knows how wrong it was and finds no need to punish the person herself. I feel she believes the other person will get what they deserve. I also appreciate the fact that she does not aknowledge her husband in the crowd, because I believe she knows it would bring him humiliation in front of all those strangers. She knows this because she is going through that same thing while she is thinking of it. I'm interested in finding out who the other person was and see what actions her husband takes towards that person.

The Market-Place

In the second chapter of The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne finds herself standing in front of everyone in the market-place, holding her child and wearing the letter "A" on her dress. She starts to reminisce about when she was young and she didnt have these troubles. I find the end of this chapter very powerful when it says, "She clutched the child so fiercely to her breast, that it sent forth a cry." To me this seems as though she is trying to hold on to her past and her childhood by gripping the baby. Also, the fact that she reaches down and touches the letter shows me that she is a woman that should not be in this situation because, to validate the situation she is in she needs to reach down and touch the letter, as if she were in a dream and she thought she would wake up. I really liked the ending to this chapter.

The Prison-Door

While I was reading the first chapter of the Scarlet Letter in class, I couldnt help imagining the difference in punishment for men and women who are unfaithful. In this story, the woman is known to have commited adultery because she has given birth to a child, but the man, at this point in the story, is unknown and has gotten out of the punishment. I dont believe that is fair. With the tone this story started with I imagine much more will happen, and even more will be revieled.