Blog #6

During this writing essay, I started out pretty confident and thought I had some pretty good ideas.  I had good topics, but I still just can't find enough support it feels like.  I did feel pretty successful though, when I thought of three pretty solid topics of discussion.  I feel like after I am completely done and look back at it and read it all, my personal succession levels will feel higher.

I did find the pre-writing activities useful, and it made it simpler for me because it gave me more of a step by step and broke down the whole outlook of the essay.  I would change my future pre-writing essays by putting more details into everything in general, and making it more organized.  The more organized it is, I feel like I would do better over all.

My peer editing experience was pretty helpful because I let other people actually know what was going through my topics, and I could get their views on it too.  The feedback did help me with my revision, because I realized some things that needed to be changed, and if they weren't changed it would effect my paper.

The strengths in my essay would be my topics  in general, and the weaknesses would be my support for those topics.  I need to get more support, and that is my goal on my next revision for the final draft.

Blog #5

2)   My own life has been greatly influenced by relationships with others.  One of the coolest relationships I have is with an 83 year old man named Don Wooten.  Don is one of those people that you can consider "old and wise."  Don has been a teacher, an Illinois State Senator, a weatherman, a parent of 5, and he has traveled all around.  He also is very intelligent, and told me that he got an A on every test in high school until he went to college, where did on all but one test.  Don also has been conducting plays for over 50 years for the Genesius Guild in Rock Island.  Every Sunday I go over to Don's to do random things around the house. This can consist of things such as refilling the birdfeeders, splitting logs as winter fire wood, raking, and just about every other random thing that you could think of.  After I do all of this work, his mind always wanders off and he talks about his life.  He is really into nature, and studied all about it, and graduated with a degree in Biology.  I guess I am a pretty fortunate 16 year old kid for being able to hear such great life stories.  He sits on his porch and looks at the trees, and thinks it's amazing how trees can communicate with each other by roots.  He also likes seeing all of the birds chirp outside.

Not only is Don a great impact, but my family is too.  My brothers are 24 and 27, and with this they have gone through high school and participated in all of the sports.  They always tell me to watch out for certain things in high school, like drugs and things like that, but than again they grew up in a much worse high school.  Also, they have had some pretty unfair coaches, and that when a coach yells at you, to just let it go through your head. This is not even merely close to enough of the things that they have helped me with.  I wouldn't be half the person I was today if it wasn't for them, because who knows if I would be led down the wrong path or not if it wasn't for them.  Also, my parents have been great influences too.  They are in their fifties, and have gone through a lot in their lives, and it's pretty amazing to see what they are today, and I'm thankful that I have parents like them.  These are just a small amount of people who have had an influence on my life.  My friends, my teachers, my relatives, even just random nice people with a smile on their face all the time inspire me to be a happier person and to try to do random acts of kindness.

The World Around Us

Around me, I hear cars moving across the pavement, and even one honking.  The honking is an indirect emotion, because the driver did not actually wave at us, but he did honk at us as a way of a greeting.  I hear the birds chirping up in the sky, and also they cross my line of sight too, attracting two senses at once.  Privileged are the birds, because they get the oppurtunity to fly naturally.  We as humans get the oppurtunity to walk easily, and miraculously for that matter, because of the balance that we didn't even know that we had that grows and develops in us as an infant.  The fact that we can easily walk, and that birds can naturally fly, shows us how the world and life around us has so many different complex structures of life to it, giving life the amazing aspects that it really has. The sound of wind passes by my ears, as if it is almost trying to move me or take my emotions with it.  I can feel the sense of happiness around, and I can hear the peaceful thoughts going through my fellow peers' minds, saying "What a beautiful day it is outside!", in agreement to my thoughts as well, as I feel a peaceful tone in the village today.

 I feel the grass below me, acting as a pillow calling our names to comfort us.  I feel the humidity around us, but just a little bit.  I see the naked trees, with the leaves that once clothed it on the ground, that were once decorating the trees.  It is clearly autumn.

Ahead of me, I see a lifeless leaf.  It used to be part of a tree, which had life of it's own.  But, now that it is broken off of the tree, it is lifeless.  This can relate people; we are apart of the world as a whole, but than eventually, we break off from this realm, and enter into the next world above us in the Heavens, just as like a leaf breaks off from the world it had with the tree, and enters the rest of the world and can move freely by the wind. We are like the leaves, we are still moving and effecting the world, even though we have broken off.

Act II Blog

1)  John Proctor is seen as a protagonist in the story, especially with having many of the details being revolved around him.  He would not be considered an antagonist, because the antagonists are the people who are accusing or pointing fingers at other people, and he hasn’t appeared to do anything like that.  He also plays as a major character in The Crucible.  He has a great impact on the story, because he once had a relationship with Abigail, and had an affair on his wife Elizabeth with Abigail.  Not only that, but Elizabeth is accused of being a witch,  which adds even a bigger twist.  Following that, John Proctor can be seen as a dynamic character through his voice and his words.  By this, I mean that in Act I, he seems as more of a mellow character, but then the beginning of Act 2 shows him yelling and showing a side that we might now have expected.  And then tying with that, this shows how he is a round character, because of his change that we saw from Act I to Act 2.

2)  John Proctor’s personal qualities consist of being two-faced and a liar, and also mean.   But on the positive side, he does show signs of trying to fix his marriage, which also shows how he is a good person.   The reasons why he can be described by these characteristics would be because he cheats on his wife, which means that he has “two-faces” to him.  This also ties into why he’s a liar, because he had the affair with Abigail behind Elizabeth’s back.  By this, he didn’t necessarily lie through his words, but more through his actions.  And by following up on that, he is mean.  He is mean to his wife, as seen at the beginning of Act 2.  Although Elizabeth does question him about where he’s been which might have triggered him to be upset, and she has a good reason to.  He also does care about Elizabeth and their marriage, because Proctor does try to defend her as best as he could for being a witch, and he also tries to protect his marriage in the scene whenever Abigail tries to separate them apart.

3)   The types of conflicts that Proctor would face are possibly both internal and external conflicts.  The internal one, man vs. mind, would be on his feelings of both Elizabeth and Abigail.  He loves Elizabeth and is married to her, but once had a relationship with Abigail, which can show a sign of an internal conflict.  The way he does try to overcome this conflict though is by defending Elizabeth from Abigail as shown in Act 2, by even saying how he doesn’t want Abigail to lay a finger on Elizabeth, which shows  how he tries to overcome his conflict.  And than an external conflict would be man vs. society.  The society that he is facing are the people who are accusing people of witchcraft.  He is facing them, because they are accusing his wife Elizabeth.

Response to Sinners

     Earlier today, I witnessed Pastor Jonathan Edwards preach the most frightening sermons ever. As a very religious Puritan, and not missing a day of church in my life, I felt really doomed and scared. After about five minutes into Pastor Edwards's sermon, I started to actually think that God wanted to crush me, and when I heard him say "The pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot, ready to receive them; the flames do now rage and glow." I was scared more than ever.  I worship my God and have given my life to him since I was just a little boy.  Hearing the terms "tormented in hell", "miserable creatures", and "furnace" really frightened me.  This also makes me wonder if Pastor Edwards has done something cruel and unholy, and he feels doomed, and now he's trying to take it out on me and my congregation.

     At the time of the sermon, I was scared.  I wanted to get out of the church.  I felt like I had been a failure at life by the way he was saying how we were going to be thrown into a "pit" or "furnace."  I felt like a sense of evilness was casted out in my soul, and I needed to get out of there.  I was so close to leaving, but instead when he said the part about how we, "deserved the fiery pit, and are already sentenced to it; and God is dreadfully provoked,..." I just stopped listening.  It was too much for me to handle.  Pastor Edwards's sermon got me confused about why God would do this to me, but now looking back at what happened earlier today, I know that the God I worship is a loving God and would never do this, especially according to the words in the Bible.  So I think that Pastor Edwards is just really scared, and was trying to make me and the rest of my congregation feel bad, and that he definitely is crazy.  Fortunately, I'm going to the other church on the other side of town town!

I handle major writing assignments or projects by getting a head start and trying to get them done sooner rather than later.  I have done projects at the last minute, but I like to get ahead of things and start them earlier if I can.  I am pretty confident in my writing ability, and I feel like I have a pretty solid vocabulary and sentence structure.  Some of my strengths consist of coming up with good storyline's and outlines, and reading other books and learning how those authors write and using it in my writing, but my weaknesses follow that up with not being able to come up with good or enough details.  My view on writing is that it's a vital thing for college.  I also enjoy it, depending on what I write about.  I hope that I can get better on it, and improve on my details when I have to write a story or essay.

I don't have any questions over the portolio assignment.  However, I do have a few apprehensions for it--I want to do the best I can on it, and I want to do above average and get something out of it.  The unit I am anticipating the most is the Modernism, Post-Modernism, & The 21st century, so I can learn about how far we have came from the past.  Honestly, it is hard to pick a unit I'm not anticipating, but if I had to pick one it would be the Women's Literature & A Changing Society, just because I don't feel that hyped up learning about Women facing struggles in American history.  The one that I feel like I'll do good on is the Poetry Unit, because I have recent experience from my Sophomore year.  The one I am worried about is the Puritan unit, because it seems like it relates to history; my worst subject.