State of the Planet

The State of The Planet was written for the 50^th anniversary of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory by author and Professor Robert Hass. The Lamont Observatory is an observatory that specializes in the study and research of the earth; they research everything from the core to the outer atmosphere looking for insight and revelation about anything and everything. The scientist’s in the observatory study information, from the past, present and future looking for ways to enhance our planet. Robert was almost overwhelmed when he was presented by the challenge of writing a poem so broad. Then he said he was inspired by the innocence of a girl he saw walking. This poem discusses a lot about our earth and how we as humans are destroying it and taking advantage of all the good it gives to us. The poem discusses specific parts about specific things to enhance our understanding about the intimacy and the detail nature holds. He continues to write about that humans are always looking for ways to take from the earth, as if the earth owes us something. We are always trying to produce more crops from the land, or take more fish out of the water, it is never enough. But in the end what are we giving back, are restoring it as much as we are destroying it? More than a couple times he makes reference as if he is speaking to Lucretius, who was a known philosopher who was consumed with the importance and beauty of the earth and nature. He writes as a plea to him, explaining our current position with how we are treating our planet, and almost asking him for help. He speaks about the science that we have to divide cells, but we are still destroying our planet. We use nature in order to enhance our human bodies, while in the end we become the earth as well. Through this poem I felt a lot of emotion from the writer I felt as though he really had a heart for his work and he wanted to get the urgency across to his reader, which I believe he fulfilled.

Enemy of the People

Enemy of the people was a great play with a great moral stance. I may not have agreed with his final choice, but he does make a stand at the end, and that is more than most people can say. The play starts out by showing a town that makes all their money off precious springs of water. The springs bring many tourists into the town, and are making the town a lot of wealth. The doctor is one of the main characters that make a sad discovery; the town springs have deadly bacteria contaminating them, which is making the town sick. The doctor’s friends, who write the towns newspaper agree with the doctor and decide together they need to publish the information to warn the town. When the doctor’s brother finds out about the discovery he is horrified. The doctor’s brother is the mayor and knows once this discovery is out the town will lose all of their income. The newspapers get threatened by the mayor, and the townspeople turn against the doctor and his family and deem him an enemy of the people. By the end of the play the doctor’s kids have gotten beat up at school, he and his daughter had lost their jobs, and they had been run out of their home, but he refused to leave town. The doctor refuses to give in to the peer pressure and do what is right, he stands by his family and teaches them “the strongest man is the man who stands alone”. I almost do not agree with the moral of the story. I understand the point of it, and see what they are trying to get across. But I do not agree with him keeping his family in the same town, if that water was so dangerous why did he keep his family there. The character I most related to was his daughter. She was a motivated young girl who almost saw the world in right and wrong. She understood what was right, and valued family as a priority. She was often ridiculed with her father as she would support him. She was often the hard head and ready to defend what was right, even when everyone, including her mother was telling her to stay out of it. The common place for a girl was to serve the men of the house, but she saw the importance of her view and stood by it. I also often agree with my father, and we see eye to eye on a lot of things that people often disagree with us on. We understand the world is not a pretty thing, and take it head on.

Lolita

Lolita was probably the weirdest book I have ever read. Never before had I read a book where someone had been so open about fantasizing about little girls. When I was interested in the book it was referenced as a tragic comedy, I never expected how it ended up. The book was full of twists and turns and I was defiantly always surprised with what happened next. The book started out with a man in love with this young girl but then she died and he got married to try and get rid of his love for young girls. When his marriage failed to fulfill the purpose he had intended, he ended up being in love with young girls again. He ended up at a cottage over the summer and a young girl and her mother living there. Throughout the summer he fell in love with this girl, Lolita. Suddenly her mother decided she was going to go to summer camp for the remainder of the summer. Humbert was heart broken when he found this out because he would be gone by the time she returned from summer camp. Humbert decided in order to remain close to Lolita he would marry her mother, who he cannot stand. When his new wife finds his journal about how he is obsessing about Lolita she was furious and in her tantrum got hit by a car while she was fleeing from the house. Humbert drove to the summer camp to explain to Lolita what tragedy had occurred. When he arrived he took her to a hotel to explain what happened and he claimed she seduced him. After they left the hotel they traveled the country for a year they eventually settled down where he got a teaching job and she started to attend school. Humbert was afraid people are stalking them and that she was being unfaithful to her. Lolita became very ill and Humbert took her to the hospital where she fled with another man. By the end of the story Lolita was left pregnant without a man, and Humbert heart broken in jail.

This story was really crazy for me to read. Lolita started off weird and ended with my mind spinning in circles. I am not sure if I would recommend it to anyone, because it was a little disturbing. The book really helped to identify literature for me. There were a lot of words that I was not familure with and the author defiantly had a specific purpose with everything he wrote.

A Snowy Funeral

No one knew funerals could be so revealing. In this cold, snowy ground laid a girl no one ever knew. Sure, plenty of people thought they knew her, even her husband thought he had revelations about her, but he never knew her entirely. The truth was, no one knew her. The only person who knew the truth was her journal and now me. At the funeral I was not alone; I was surrounded by hundreds of others. Everyone had their own story about this girl. Everyone had some memory, but none were the truth. As we all sat there on the freezing February afternoon crying and staring at the bitter white face of Joy. She looked so peaceful, so at ease, not a care in world. I was wondering if she was watching from heaven now, if she could see everyone who would miss her, and all the tears that were spilt over her. One by one people left, and soon it was just me and her best friend; her husband and her journal. I stroked her blond hair and her white cold face. She was wearing her favorite dress, a simple white cotton dress that covered her like a gown. The white cotton gauze dress wrapped her so delicately; it summed her up so well. She, like the dress was simple, and easy, always willing to go where the wind pushed or pulled her, just like this dress. I wondered how someone so beautiful could die so soon. She was not only beautiful on the outside she was just as pure in the inside. I wondered if she would be mad at me. I remember her telling me in college while we were still engaged, she wanted to be cremated and scattered on the beach. Oh she loved the beach, and she looked like she had been born for the purpose of living on the beach. As soon as I would park the car she would hit the pavement running until she made it to the sand. Then she would walk so softly across the sand like she was walking on clouds, her eyes closed with a smile on her face, every hair on her body would be standing on end with excitement, and anyone could see her spirit come alive. She used to explain to me that the ocean waves were like her heart, so powerful, strong, and consistent, so beautiful, capable of anything if people would just let it take its course. No, I do not think she would be mad, just disappointed; disappointed because she always was trying to embed her love for the beach into me as well. She would succeed when I was with her, but when she was gone I had no desire for the beach. It is just not the same without her; to me the beach comes alive when she is on it. Her smile makes the sun shine on the beach for me; it was not the sound of the seagulls, but the sound of her laughter on the beach that brought me coming back. Everything is grey without her, even the beach.

One thing I know she would be mad about is me reading her journal, this is a fact. She used to protect it with all her might. When she would walk in and I would be holding it she would scream like bloody murder and violently grab it from me. Then she would run to the corner of the room with anger and horror in her eyes, still spitting words of anger at me. Her eyes would turn to fire and she quickly became larger than me as I sat wilting on the bed. I never read one word of the journal; sometimes I would just hold it and stare because it was so magnificent to her. IT was her, everything she couldn’t tell me, it was there, everything she thought, even if she didn’t mean it, it was in the journal. But the real reason I loved the journal was because it made her so mad. You see, in every area she was such a peaceful creature, except for when it came to this journal, and I loved seeing that. I loved to see her angry, as horrible as it sounds, but that was my precious Joy. When she would burn with frustration you could see her neck begin to turn red then it would run into her face, and her face would become red, then her eyes would squint as if she was getting ready to shoot someone with a laser. The anger was so raw, so particular, and so passionate. That was Joy in one word if I had to say it, passionate. She even slept with passion. So many times in the middle of the night I would wake up from her yelling about saving people, or not getting enough work done. She was always thinking about other people and how to help them, even in her dreams. Dreams are a funny thing, they are usually so unrealistic, so unimaginable except for the one dreaming them. Well my friends, not for my love. Her dreams were her reality. The funny thing was she turned everything into a dream, and then succeeded at it. She said it was her dream to go to college, she did it, it was her dream to marry me, she did it, she said it was her dream to drive a motorcycle, she of course did it, once she even claimed it was her dream to open 25 orphanages all in different countries, and that little women did it. Of course she gave 100% of her one dream to me, to be scattered on a beach, and I couldn’t do it. I was the one man standing in her way of fulfilling her last dream. It makes me want to cry but I know what she wouldn’t want me to. She would cuddle me in her skinny, tan arms, and hum love songs to me that I would sing to her in college. She would laugh softly and calm me and I would stare into her loving blue eyes, and feel her smooth face. She was always so peaceful, always so calm, always so loving. Why did my love have to leave me, now we are no longer on her golden sun beach, but she is now sleeping forever in this cold, snowy ground.

Venturing into the world of reading Lit

When Professor Corrigan instructed us to find a literary book and read it at first I was confused. I did not understand what the difference was between a normal book and a literary book. So I started my search by looking at the list he gave us online and looking the books up in the library. Soon enough I found out what all the books had in common, they were all hard to understand. It took me several books to finally find one that I felt I could read. I found the book, took it off the shelf and begin to read it, then five minutes later realized I had no idea what it was saying. After finally finding Lolita, a book that grabbed my attention in the first paragraph, I decided this was going to be my literary book to read.

Much to my surprise the book was nothing like I expected, or nothing like the reviews I had read for it. As I started reading I got about five pages into the book and realized I was already lost, this was not a good sign. I could not read this literary book like a normal book. I had to read it slow, and read and understand each word and what the author was meaning. I soon realized there was a lot more meaning and depth to this literary book that a normal entertaining read. At times it was really hard for me to understand and I would find myself lost in the words, but not like a good lost, like a confused lost. Many times I would find myself reading sentences more than once trying to understand what the author was implying.

I have a lot more to look forward in reading this book. One thing it does not lack is surprises. Many times I find myself gasping at what I read and looking around, hoping no one is watching me read this book. If you are not sure why I should be embarrassed about reading this book, maybe you should pick up a copy and read it for yourself.

Movie Night Questions

A.

The movie began like every other fairytale move out there. A perfect town, in a perfect world, where everyone thought nothing could ever go wrong. Everything was in harmony, animals and humans lived in peace and it was always sunny. One day on the best day of the year “Soup Day” a tragedy occurred, the queen died by means of a rat! Due to the kings sorrow he band all soup and all mice and rats. After this all of the mice and rats were summoned to underground to live in separate worlds and became enemies. In the mouse world a mouse named Desperaux was born very different and courageous. Even though he had positive attributes, because he was different he was seen as a threat and banished to the rat world. While he was there he also escaped to the outside world and met the princess and from there on dedicated his life to making her happy and to protect her. Little did he know his success would affect more than just the queen.

B.

Roscuro- static and round. He was a old, skinny, feebish old rat. The viewers saw him as sweet and kind hearted.

Despereaux- static and round. He was the hero, young, vibrant; everyone could relate to, cute voice, meant no harm to anyone.

Miggery Sow- flat and dymanic. Ugly, sad, sweet heart but got over looked by princess, made audience feel sorry for her

Princess Pea- Flat and dymanic. Pretty, sad, everyone felt sorry for her, she felt no real purpose.

C.

1. The movie deals with a lot of real life situations that are hard to bring up in a children’s movie, but this film handled it nicely. For example with death, it showed sorrow, but then it also expressed that it can be overcome, but it is difficult. By using the main character it showed that not everyone has to be the same, we need to use our differences to better the world. I also liked the aspect that they showed poverty, but they did not get happy when they got wealth, they were joyous that the sun came back, and that life was good again.

2. The film had a lot of good morals that were expressed. The main value was that everyone is different, and everyone has something to contribute and offer, even if people do not see it right away. Another important message was to never settle for what society is telling you how one need to be, we need to be ourselves, and be true to it. Another positive I liked was that they used his punishment; his banishment, as a good thing.

CHARACTER

The characterization in a story is often over looked but is usually a vital part of any literature story. I had never really thought about the importance of the characters until this recent class period. I guess I had always just assumed there were great characters in every story. But in reality it takes a lot to establish a round character. In my opinion it takes a lot of work and explaining in order for a reader to get on the same page as the author when it comes to establishing a character. As an author, one often wants the reader to have a complete understanding of the character in order to understand the purpose of the story. But also, sometimes the lack of knowing a character can add to the story as well. Sometimes in literature an author will reveal very little about a character, but include them in a lot of dialogue. Sometimes I appreciate this kind of work, because it’s like a suspense trying to establish the character with your own mind. But then, in the end the author is still creating the character for you because they lead you through the story and lead you to form what you are thinking.

So as we can see characters in literature often seem up front and obvious, but many times we need to look a little deeper and try and see the character the author is trying to create for us. The characters in literature often revel more than just one layer of information, they often relate to the plot, and story. So, if we have little understanding of the characters, we can probably bet we have little understanding of the story. After thinking about the importance of character I will now begin to notice the importance as I read.