Blogs :)

I would like to take a break on analyzing poems and would like to tell you some interesting news i found today on BBC NEWS. It was about a group of scientists who found a Pulijiwa Darwini, the oldest seal ancestor so far and discovered that the Darwini used to have webbed feet and they were not flippers like the ones we see on the seals today. The fossil was found in Northern Canada and was 23 million years old. Only 65% of the fossils where found and the scientists are still trying to complete the whole body. The scientists predicts that the Darwini used to walk on land and swam under water with their webbed feet. 

if you would like to see a draw picture of the Pulijiwa Darwini (by the scientists) please go to this link -> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8012322.stm

A Birthday Candle   by Donald Justice

Thirty today, I saw
The trees flare briefly like
The candles on a cake,
As the sun went down the sky,
A momentary flash,
Yet there was time to wish

A Birthday Candle by Donald Justice is a short poem with only one stanza with a deep meaning in every line. The whole poem is a story of the author turing thirty today, describing what he sees in front of him that moment which relates to birthdays. The setting of this story must be in a forest or at the backyard because it explains on the second and third line that “The trees flare briskly like the candles on a cake.” The author is looking at the trees in the forest of the backyard, moving because of the wind, imagining they are the candles on the birthday cake before it gets blown out. This line also has an simile when it describes the trees as candles. 

Where it says “As the sun went down the sky, A momentary flash” it told me the sun was behind the trees, acting the part of the light of the candle and as disappearing, the candle lights would be gone. ” A momentary flash” could mean the author had some  flash back of his life of 30 years thinking about what  he has done. 

On the last line, it says ” Yet there was time to wish”. Thinking about the lines before, this could go back to when there was the momentary flash, he made a wish with it. Maybe it meant that he has not done all the things he wants to do before he died and had time to wish about it before the lights went out.

This poem was not depressing but it made me calm. It could of have been the good word choices like wish, sun, and cake. It was nice how the author made a story with only one short stanza. 

Fuyuka

During our English Class over the past few weeks, we have read the original copy of ‘Of Mice And Men’ by John Steinbeck and have watched the movie that was based on the book. They both had the same story line (plot) and was both really good. I would like to talk about the book and the movie since we are almost at the end of the movie.

Before watching the movie, the characters in the book and in the movie seemed really different to me. First of all, after reading the book i have thought that Slim would be a lot like Curley but he turned out to be more friendlier to Lennie and George. Slim sounded a lot meaner in the book for me because i wasn’t able to see his facial expression and the way the ranch workers talked back then sounded as they where rude. In the movie, he covered for Lennie and George when they got into trouble. The movie was better for me to understand the characters even more.

Some parts of the movie was quite sad to see. For example the part when Candy’s old dog was shot by the back of the head. It was sorrowful to hear the gunshot instead of reading it and knowing that the gun was shot. Another part which i thought was dejected was when Lennie was grabbing on to Curley’s wife, causing her death to be from a broken neck. She was moving, trying to get Lennie back off but she was too weak for him. Mostly from the movie, the scene when Curley’s hand was getting squished by Lennie was repulsive. Blood was coming out from the hand while Lennie squished it harder. In the book it didn’t seem as much of a deal but in the movie, it defiantly did.

The movie and the book was quite different in some parts. I was glad i have read the book before we watched it. Since i was able to rewind the memory of the story and manage to think to myself that i was thinking wrong at some parts of the book.
Both book and movie of ‘ Of Mice And Men’ was a good novel. It described how life was like during the great depression at the ranch in California.

  In English class we read Macbeth by William Shakespeare. It was an interesting play and it was a kind of play that i have never read before. Since i haven’t read much plays written in the past, i have noticed things i wouldn’t normally read in the books i read. I would like to talk about the things i have noticed and some parts of the play where i found it engrossing. 

Macbeth is a play about a soldier named Macbeth who has successfully won a fight against the Norwegians. After the fight, Macbeth was stopped by three witches which said that Macbeth would end up being the king. Right after Macbeth was told this, he told that to his wife, Lady Macbeth. Lady Macbeth thought about the advantages about Macbeth being the king and she planned about inviting Duncan, the current king to stay over at their house so they would be able to murder him during the night. Their plan worked out all right but the fear in which they have killed the king turned out to be immense. Even though Macbeth and Lady Macbeth were able to murder the king, there were other possible people who could be the new king besides Macbeth, like  Duncan’s son Malcolm and Donalbain. Macbeth eventually got to be the king for the reasons that Malcolm went to England and Donalbain headed towards Ireland since they felt danger. As Macbeth was the new king, Malcolm was making a army to defeat Macbeth. In the end Malcolm and his soldiers go to defeat Macbeth and his soldiers. Before Macbeth’s death, Lady Macbeth was thought weird since she said she saw red spots on her hand. This was a brief story of Macbeth. 

I liked the story Macbeth since it had a style of writing different to the ones we read now and the words used in the book were historic. The settings of the play was set in the old days and by reading and knowing some information of the times when Shakespeare lived, the people believed in supernatural things. In Macbeth, there were witches who were evil and who said things which weren’t bringing good news. There were ghosts of Banquo in the play right after Macbeth killed Banquo. These parts in the play were supernatural. 

The characters in Macbeth  are unique, especially the three witches. The witches are dull and they tend to say prophecies and paradoxes to Macbeth. A example of a paradox the witches says was in Scene 1, ” Fair is foul, and foul is fair, Hover through the fog and filthy air.”  The fair is foul can mean that the witches gave Macbeth a good prophecy of his life but the things to make that come true is foul. The foul is fair can mean that they have won the battle. but the weather is not very pleasant. The prophecies are told to Macbeth from the witches regularly through out the play. 

I have never heard of the term dramatic irony until i read Macbeth. It was seen some times during the play but the one i remember is when Lady Macbeth and Macbeth made a plan to murder Duncan. The audience knows that Duncan would be killed during his sleep but Duncan does not know. This is one of the dramatic irony in the play.

I think the theme of the play Macbeth is vice. The play shows that Macbeth has greed in wanting to be the king. The actions that Macbeth takes to become the king are bad, like murdering and lying to people to get what he want for himself.  The witches show vice when they sing their spell for the cauldron on Act 4, Scene 1. They say things like ” Charm it with a baboon’s blood, Then the charm is firm and good.” This quote from the Second Witch tells me that the things they say and do are inhuman. The theme virtue can be seen a little in the play when Macbeth and Banquo won the fight at the beginning and when Malcolm and his soldiers fight with Macbeth to be able to save the country and to get the king’s crown back. I thought these are the themes in Macbeth.

First Macbeth was a hero, but he ended up being a villain. Macbeth was a good story and a lesson telling me that a prophecy could lead you to do something really bad, and like Macbeth, you may not be able to stop doing it until you finally get what you want. The book was challenging at first, but when i  kept on reading it, it got less confusing to read. I was glad we read this book in English class.

During the winter break, I have finished reading a novel by Cecelia Ahern called PS. I Love You. Some of you may have heard this book because its movie was released on October 18th 2008 in Japan. I would like to tell you the synopsis of this book and all sorts of things I have liked and realized while reading this novel.

Holly and Gerry were a young and ideal married couple. But a miserable brain tumor hit on Gerry and left poor Holly alone in their apartment where they shared their dreams and contentment’s. After Gerry’s death, Holly didn’t have any ability to start a job, meet new friends, clean the house and to go outside. While Holly was wondering why she was breathing without Gerry by her side, her mother came to her house with 10 envelopes in her hand which had dates written from February to December. These letters where from Gerry, telling her to do unpredicted tasks without him. The letters told her to go party with friends, to go to a trip to Lanzarote with her friends, to do a job that she actually loved and other tasks or sayings to Holly. As Holly did the tasks, Holly felt closer to Gerry and actually felt her life was getting better. Her family, friends and new relationships supported Holly and her upcoming life and without all their help, she could have achieved nothing.

I started to read PS.I Love You right after I saw the movie because I wanted to see how different the book was told compared to the movie. I was confounded with how unalike they were. The characters, places, plot, settings and almost everything of the story was different.

First, I like the characters of this book. Holly the character sets up the story really well and it makes the story much better. Her behavior after she lost Gerry made up the story. Holly is a beautiful and smart woman who regrets being mean to Gerry about his income and all the little things she can remember. Her thoughts of worry if she could live without him are told through out the story. A quote that shows that is when Holly was listening to Gerry’s voice mail and says ” Gerry…I need you…” These types of quotes are spoken from Holly numerous times.

The next character is Gerry. Even though he isn’t mentioned as much as Holly, he completes Holly’s fear as she has something she gets afraid of. Also Gerry in the book makes the story more humorous. In the story, as he goes to the airline ticket counter to plan Holly and friend’s a trip to Lanzarote, he meets Barbara who hates her job, boss and annoying customers. Gerry buys 3 tickets and leaves. As Gerry leaves with his stick, wearing a hat, Barbara opens the door for Gerry and banged the door on the boss by mistake. Gerry saw that and gave Barbara a thumbs up and laughed. After Gerry left, Barbara cried because she felt sorry for Gerry being ill at a young age and for the first time she thought that her job was better than she thought it was.

Since this book is quite long, I wouldn’t be able to list all the metaphors, similes, rhymes and etc but I would like to mention some of the ones I read. I have noticed that there are a lot’s of ellipses in a sentence when Holly speaks because it makes her sound very depressed. She uses them when she found out her friends were living a better life as Holly found out they were getting a baby or was getting married. This makes her sound really jealous of her friends, like she’s not happy at all. By looking back through the books, I couldn’t find any metaphors but I got to find a simile. An example of this is when Charlie the bartender described how Holly looked when she arrived at the bar. ” (Holly’s) hair looked like straws and was sticking out in all directions….” This simply tells me that Holly’s thin hair is all messy. While reading PS.I Love You, you would be able to see these kinds of phrases that are interesting and funny.

The theme of this book is that anyone can loose someone very special in his or her life unexpectedly. That sadness could last long but if you try your best thinking about that someone, you would be able to get over the depression and would be able to start your life all over again. The author used Holly and told the theme very well and the author made me, the reader think I was Holly and knew her feelings.

PS. I Love You is a great book for anyone who loves book with a little bit of romance, sadness and a story about friendship. If you have seen the movie, I would highly recommend you reading this book. The ending was abrupt like the beginning and the middle of this book. This is a must-read book!

I think school does not affect our thought in creativity. Mina in the book Skellig has more ideas than Michael but she is not good at socializing with others. Children who goes to school can have more creativity than children who are home schooled because we get to share ideas with others ( other students and teachers) and get to know what other people think aswell and to know other opinions. We may hear some other good and better ideas from someone else which could lead you to another better idea. This makes us to think more harder to make everything better.  At school, the teacher can sometimes force the students into liking one subject and trying to make them better at it, but this makes us learn that even if we dont like things, we still have to try out best and think about that topic. If we only learnt what we want to learn, we wouldnt be able to think of things when we suddenly get a topic on  a thing we dislike.

I think school is a great place to express how creative you are.

I have recently seen the movie The Bucket List with my friends and i thought i wanted to make everyone see that movie in a instant. This movie is about a guy named Carter, who is a mechanic and a guy named Edward who is a billionaire. One day these two would meet together in the room at the hospital and they both find out they have cancer. These two has nothing in common. Nothing else but their disease. 

After these two hear that they could only live for 6 months – 1 year, Carter made a BUCKET LIST (which is a list that has your goals to achieve or anything about what you would want to do.) Edward didn’t know anything about the list so one day he picks it up from him. He thought it was a great idea and  he started adding more goals to achieve before they die. Because Edward was a billionaire and he has done more things than Carter ever did in his life, he wrote down things like…

1. Go Skydiving
2. Go see a beautiful view
3. Be extremely nice to someone you don’t know
4. Laugh really hard until you cry

There were more than 10 lists on the bucket list and because they knew their life was short, they decided to go to their trip to complete this list. They also wanted to leave the hospital because they didn’y have freedom. Edward had the money and Carter had the ideas.

They start heading off to places where ever they wanted to go. Sooner or later, they skydived from a high point, they went to see a beautiful view in Egypt, which was in front of the pyramid and they did something really nice to person they have never even talked to before.  After 5 months, they had 1 thing in the list they haven’t done, which was climb up Mt. Everest and see the view. They headed off to the starting point but sadly it had a terrible blizzard for a few days so they decided to come back here during the Spring time. They started heading back to they hospital because Carter was feeling weaker and his wife wanted him back.. so  they go back to where they were supposed to be from the start. 

During this movie, you would start to notice that they have a very strong friendship and they start to talk about themselves/life a bit more because they can trust each other.

Could they finish the list before they past away? Would they die in happiness? Could they find joy in their lives?? This movie is all about friendship,love and etc. This movie is a movie which could make you cry and laugh because it has some humor in it. It teaches us the reason why we should love living by having fun, loving somone and by having hard times but finally finding a way to get out of that mistake.  I would defiantly recommend  this movie to you. 

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