The Scarlet Ibis

I think that the Scarlet Ibis was a good story. The scarlet ibis and Doodle are very similar. Both the scarlet ibis and Doodle and unique and fragile. The narrator of the Scarlet Ibis was Doodle's brother. The narrator wanted a brother to play with, but was very disappointed when his new brother was Doodle. Doodle could not walk, and at times, the narrator got embarrassed of Doodle's problem. The narrator tried to make Doodle walk out of selfishness. I do not think the narrator should have pushed Doodle to walk as much because Doodle was very fragile. Overall, I thought the Scarlet Ibis was an interesting story and I would recommend it to other people.

Emily is my Favorite Bad Guy

Emily, from 90210, is my favorite bad guy. Emily is Annie and Dixon’s cousin, and stays at their house. Emily is the same age as Annie and Dixon. Throughout the show, Emily tries to ruin Annie’s life. Emily wants to ruin Annie’s life because when she arrived at their house, Annie did not make her feel welcome and was kind of mean to Emily. Emily wants to get revenge on Annie and wants to show her how it feels when no one likes you. I am always eager to watch the next show because I want to know what more Emily does to hurt Annie.

Emily is my favorite bad guy because she has very clever ways to ruin Annie’s life. Emily is secretly a very good actor so she uses her acting skills to hurt Annie. One of the worst parts about this whole situation is that Annie knows that Emily is trying to ruin her life, but no one believes that ‘sweet and innocent’ Emily would ever do anything with harm. When Annie tries to confront her of it, Emily fake cries, which makes Annie look like the bad guy. Some examples of what Emily does are Emily told all of Annie’s friends that Annie thinks they are stuck up, which makes them mad at Annie. Emily also tells Annie’s boyfriend, Liam, a lot of lies, which almost breaks them up. 

Do you think that in the end, all human society runs the risk of being violent?

Jack and his group are very violent. They dance and sing, Kill the beast! Cut its throat! Spill its blood! Their main focus is hunting and hurting people. An example of them hurting people is when it says Jack tied Wilfred up and none of the other group members untied him. Roger throws rocks at other boys and Jack and his group poke Sam in the ribs and force Sam and Eric into their group. After they killed Simon, Jack says that Simon was the beast in disguise. Jack does not feel guilty at all about killing Simon.

         Ralph had many good ideas for his group. He made rules that he thought would think help them survive on the island. His first rule was that they must have the fire going all day and all night long. Other rules were that they had to go to the bathroom away from the fruit trees and that the person with the conch was the only one allowed to talk. Each of these rules had a reason. The fire would help them be rescued, the bathroom rule would help keep things more sanitary, and the conch would keep things more organized.

         I think that in the end, all human society does take the risk of becoming violent and only caring about themselves. Jack only cared about himself being safe and being in power. The rest of Jacks group does not care about anyone, they just want to hunt and kill. None of them were affected when they killed Simon or Piggy, and all of them were participating in the act of trying to kill Ralph. Piggy only felt a little guilty about killing Simon but still tried to make and excuse saying that it was an accident. I believe that Ralph was the only one that did not change a lot because he still cared about everyone including Piggy. Ralph is the one that wants to make peace with Jack and Ralph felt really guilty about killing Simon and admitted that it was murder. 

What is the author saying about our species?

I think that the author of Lord of the Flies is trying to tell us something about our species. I think that people are born to be nice, but throughout their life, they learn how to be mean and selfish. At the beginning of the book, most of the boys are nice to each other, except a few such as Ralph and Jack. As the book goes on and they start to become familiar with the island, they become selfish, rude and want power. At the beginning of the book, Ralph and Jack were the only ones that were rude to the other boys. I think they were rude because both of them had a little power over another person or a group before they met the other boys. I believe that with the little power that they had, they felt like they were extremely powerful. I think that this happened because when a person is somewhere they don’t know with people they are not familiar with, all they want to do is fit in. As they get to know the land and the people, they want to be more noticed. Ralph used Piggy’s nickname “piggy” to get more noticed when he commented about it.

             I think that there is hope for the human species. I think that there is still hope because not all people in the world are cruel and selfish. People only become mean and selfish when they grow up around it. If a parent stops being mean and selfish to their child, there is a less chance that the child will grow up to be mean and selfish. 

Can we trust people to be good?

I think we can trust people to be good. Inside every person, there is good. When a person is acting mean, they are either trying to impress someone, or trying to make themselves feel more powerful. Also, people do things because they are influenced by their childhood environment. For example, a parent that abuses their child most likely was abused as a child.

            If a group of people were left on an island with no external threats, and adequate food and water, I think they would sometimes get along, but at other times I don’t think they would. I think that for the first couple of weeks they will get along very well because they will all need to figure thing out as a group such as what they will sleep in and where. I believe that things will run a lot smoother if they develop a set of rules. After a while, if they don’t have a specific set of rules, the group of people will become very familiar with the land and things will start to fall apart. I think there will start to become one or two people the become the “leader”, and others that become the “followers”. The problem with leaders and followers is that the “leaders” choose the rules and the “followers” don’t have a say in any of them. 

A Barred Owl by Richard Wilbur

Last week I learned the poem, A Barred Owl by Richard Wilbur.

The warping night air having brought the boom

Of an owl’s voice into her darkened room,

We tell the wakened child that all she heard

Was an odd question from a forest bird,

Asking of us, if rightly listened to,

“Who cooks for you?” and then “Who cooks for you?”

Words, which can make our terrors bravely clear,

Can also thus domesticate a fear,

And send a small child back to sleep at night

Not listening for the sound of stealthy flight

Or dreaming of some small thing in a claw

Borne up to some dark branch and eaten raw.

 I enjoyed learning my poem. I think that I picked a very good poem to memorize because I understood it very well. My poem was about a girl who woke up in the middle of the night because she heard an owl’s voice. Her parents told her that the owl was asking, “who cooks for you?”. I learned the poem by studying each line very carefully. When Mr. Parsons explained to me what my poem was about, it was much easier to memorize. Honestly, I did not think that I could memorize the whole poem, but I did it! All of my hard work paid off. As I was standing in front of the class, I was very nervous about messing up. After I finished reciting it, I felt relieved. Mr. Parson let my classmates and me recite our poems again. The second time I recited my poem I added different sounds such as the sound of an owl. I think I did an amazing job reciting my poem. Mr. Parson gave me a B, but I think I deserved a higher grade.  

What i Learned From the Odyssey

I think that the Odyssey is a very interesting story. The Odyssey made me realize that I should not take anything for granted, and that if I stay determined at something and never give up, I will most likely achieve my goal. The main lesson that I learned from the Odyssey was about love. I learned that if one finds true love, one should stay loyal to him or her because it is a rare thing to find. I also learned that people should fight for what they want, and not do something because everyone around them wants them to do it, but do it because they want to do it. 

The Holiday Season

The holiday season has something for everybody, no matter his or her religion. If you are Christian you would celebrate the birth of Jesus. If you are Jewish, you would celebrate Hannukah for eight nights. Growing up in a Jewish household, I learned to love the celebration of Hannukah.

My favorite holiday, Hannukah, celebrates a Jewish miracle.  After the Maccabees defeated the Greeks in 168 B.C.E, they returned to their temple in Jerusalem. When the Maccabees arrived, they only found enough oil to last one day. They lit the menorah anyway, and to their surprise, the small amount of oil lasted eight full days, which is why Hannukah lasts eight days.  In Hebrew, the word ‘Hannukah’ means ‘dedication’. Hanukkah falls on the twenty-fifth day of the Jewish month of Kislev. Since the Jewish calendar is lunar based, every year the first day of Hanukkah falls on a different day.

My family follows the traditions of Hannukah. Each night of the holiday, we all gather in front of the menorah, light the candles and say a prayer. Then we sit down for a nice, big meal. Our Hannukah meal consists of potato latkes and jelly doughnuts. After we finish eating we play a long game of dreidel, with gelt. Gelt is chocolate that looks like gold coins. The dreidel has four sides, and each side has a symbol. Depending which side your dreidel lands on, depends on how much gelt you will receive. When my family and I finish our exciting game of dreidel, we open presents.

My favorite part of Hannukah is the presents because it makes me feel good to give back to my family.  I love to go shopping, so I always have an amazing gift to give to my parents. This is just one of the many reasons why I love the holiday season.