my last blog post

After being stuck for a while and not knowing what story I wanted to choose for my second and final special entry. I ended up picking the short story we read in class titled, “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”. I really enjoyed reading this poem in class and had an idea of what the author was trying to say. After reading it a couple more times, I started to get a different interpretation than after my first time reading it. This might seem to be a weird choice for a special entry because it seems to be easily understood and seem to have only one interpretation.
The main part of this story that I thought needs the most looking over to get different interpretations is the conversation between Mel and his wife Terri on true love. This is a story about two couples sitting around a coffee table talking, with one of the couples named Mel and Terri telling the other couple about their previous love or lack thereof. This story is mainly about Mel and Terri showing their two very different views on what true love is and what it is not. It starts with Terri and her husband Mel telling their friends about her last relationship before she met Mel. “Terri said the man she lived with before she lived with Mel loved her so much he tried to kill her”. In her eyes this was an act of true love by her boyfriend, even though it would have caused harm to her. I believe she thought this to be him showing love because she knew he was insane and had a very different view on what it meant to love someone. While Mel disagrees later in the story, he states “I don’t know what you call it, but I sure know you wouldn’t call it love”. After my first time reading this short story I would have to agree with Mel, being that Terri’s boyfriend obviously had something messed up in his head. His mental problems were the main reason in me not agreeing with Terri’s point of view that he was in love with her. Later in the story it goes on to tell you that he used to stalk them and make numerous threats, to both, then later he tries kills himself. This shows that he had many mental issues and maybe didn’t even love Terri at all.
Then they start to talk a little about Mel's ex wife and his angry thoughts about her. After all of the things he says to Terri about her previous relationship not being true love because the guy tried to kill her, then goes on talk about his last relationship. He states that she is allergic to bees and then goes on to talk about how he has contemplated getting a lot of bees to let them lose so they can kill her. This shows that maybe Mel also has some mental problems just like Terri’s ex boyfriend. This is also a very hypocritical thing to say since he just said her last boyfriend did not actually love her since her tried to kill her. Then he goes on to say that his relationship was true love even though he also has contemplated trying to kill his last girlfriend. After finishing this short story what I find very interesting is that Mel said he truly loved his ex wife and made me rethink my view on who actually loved who.
So after I got done readying this short story and took all the text in to account to make a solid interpretation. I started to think maybe both of their previous relationships were actually true love, even though both men thought of evil things about their wife. My reason for coming up with this idea is that I started to think, how can someone not in the relationship be able to say if they actually did love each other or not. I know that they both did or thought about doing some stupid stuff, but that doesn’t mean neither man loved their woman. This short story makes me think of the saying “love makes you do crazy things” and what are some of these crazy things that they mean. Does this mean love drives people crazy, or that you will do crazy things for the people that you love? It sounds like the same thing but if you think about it is two very different ideas. The first part saying “that love drives someone crazy” means that someone who is in true love will then be driven to do crazy things, like in the story maybe for instance trying to kill your girlfriend because he can’t see himself without her. The next part is saying “it drives you to do crazy things for the people you love”, meaning that you will do things that make no sense in doing but you do them anyway because you love her.
The last thing I started to think about is that Terri believed through everything her last boyfriend did to her, that he still did truly love her. This made me think that maybe love has many different meanings and ways for people to show their love to others. I know that someone doesn’t love their dad and mom the same way they love their wife, but this caused me to think is there different forms of love in marriage. For example, if a man lets his wife boss him around all the time, is this true love. What if the roles are changed and the man is the one that bosses his wife around all ways telling her what to do. Are both of these relationships examples of true love, is there a difference in the love between the two relationships?

This was a fun and tough text to get a solid interpretation for this blog. I know a lot of this interpretation is all over the place, but I think that is because deciding which last relationship was actually true love is a hard topic to make a yes/no judgement.

Only a couple more blogs left

I have had a lot of fun doing my previous two blogs, where I took different poems and tried to get an understanding of what the author was trying to get across. So I decided to keep going on the same idea as my previous blogs and take a new poem and try to see what understanding I can get from it. The poem I chose was “Fast rode the knight” by the poet Stephen Crane.

Fast rode the knight

Fast rode the knight
With spurs, hot and reeking,
Ever waving an eager sword,
"To save my lady!"
Fast rode the knIght,
And leaped from saddle to war.
Men of steel flickered and gleamed
Like riot of silver lights,
And the gold of the knight's good banner
Still waved on a castle wall
.. . . . .
A horse,
Blowing, staggering, bloody thing,
Forgotten at foot of castle wall.
A horse
Dead at foot of castle wall.

I found this poem to be very interesting and an easy read compared to the ones we are given to read in class. I say that not just because it is a very short poem, but to say that the poet doesn’t try to be confusing with the way he talks in the poem like most other poets. This is nice for me the reader because not every poem should be confusing and tough to understand. I like to be able to read a poem and right away get what the poet is trying to say to the reader of this poem.

My understanding of this poem may be wrong but it is what I comprehended when I first read and then after the many times of rereading. What I think the poet is trying to say is that the knight is the hero, but what about the horse. The horse is the reason why the knight was able to ride fast into battle. So the poet is trying to say that the horse is important just as the knight, but doesn’t get the credit like the knight. By the author saying forgotten at foot of castle wall, as if trying to say that not enough credit is given to the little guys of this world.

This was my understanding of the poem “Fast rode the knight”. This shows that poems don’t have to contain such tough wording and be so hard to understand to still have a great meaning behind it.

Messy Room

I had so much fun writing my last blog that I thought that I should write another just like it. In my last blog I wrote about how I was going to read a poem and try to get what the author really meant. The poem was “A dream within a dream”, it really tough at first, but then I felt like I got a good understanding of the message of the poem.

This time I chose a different famous poem to try and get an understanding of what the poet was trying to say. The poem is a very interested one, it is called “messy room” by Shel Silverstein.

Messy Room by Shel Silverstein

Whosever room this is should be ashamed!

His underwear is hanging on the lamp.

His raincoat is there in the overstuffed chair,

And the chair is becoming quite mucky and damp.

His workbook is wedged in the window,

His sweater's been thrown on the floor.

His scarf and one ski are beneath the TV,

And his pants have been carelessly hung on the door.

His books are all jammed in the closet,

His vest has been left in the hall.

A lizard named Ed is asleep in his bed,

And his smelly old sock has been stuck to the wall.

Whosever room this is should be ashamed!

Donald or Robert or Willie or--

Huh? You say it's mine? Oh, dear,

I knew it looked familiar!

My first time reading this poem I started to think it was about a kid with a really dirty room, then I read it a couple more times and got a couple different views. I think this poem is open, meaning that people can come up with many different understandings of what the poet is trying to get across. One of my understandings after reading this poem a couple times is that the poet is trying to talk about how we judge everyone else without realizing that it is actually us that have the same problems. What I mean is that people are saying how wrong something is without realizing that they themselves are the ones that are in the wrong.

The next understanding I got from this poem after many times of reading it was about the earth. Saying how someone could talk about all the problems that others are doing to the earth without realizing what they are doing to it.

This was a fun poem to read and try to get an understanding of what the author meant. The different tools I have learned in this class have helped me a lot in forming understandings of different poems.

A dream within a dream

After struggling to understand most of the poems we have read together as a class, I thought I would go and find a famous poem off of the internet. My plan was to read a very popular poem off the internet and see if I could understand the meaning the author was trying to get across. Just like we are taught in class, I will read and reread many times to try and get different ideas every time I go back to read. The famous poem that I chose was:

"A Dream Within A Dream" by Edgar Allan Po


Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow--
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand--
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep--while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

I found this poem to be difficult to understand just like the ones that we have read together in class. But I didnt give up and I kept rereading till I came up with what I thought the poet was trying to say through this poem. After like the third time reading this poem, I came up with what I think the poem is about. I started to think this is about a man that loses the one that he loves to death and becomes very sad. The way he says”kiss upon the brow”, makes me think that he is giving her a kiss goodbye. The other thing is the way he talks about how the sand running through his fingers and there’s nothing he can do to slow it down or stop it. I find this to be the poet trying to explain how time keeps passing by and there’s nothing anyone can do to slow it down or to stop time. This is why I believe the poem is about how a man loses the woman that he loves after she dies and how he wishes the time they spent together would have slowed down.

Questions:
1. What is your understanding of this Edgar Allan Poe poem?
2. How many times did you have to read this poem till you came up with this interpretation?
3. Did you like this poem?

Dr. Horrible

Yesterday’s class started off looking like it was going to be no fun, but turned out to actually be a time. The Dr. Horrible movie didn’t start out as funny as I thought it would but then it took off and turned out to be really funny. The movie did a good job of building the main character as a ruthless, evil genius that wanted to take over the world. Once the movie watcher starts to believe this is the main character, he turns out to have a crush on a girl at the local laundry mat. He turns out to be too shy to even approach her and even speak to her. This makes you start to think that maybe the main character is actually really nerdy and not the angry man that wants to take over the world.
It turns out that all of Dr. Horrible evil plans to take over the world end up back firing against him. For example, when he tries to get the suit case out of the van, he ends up having his arch nemesis named captain hammer to show up and save the girl he is in love with. Thus causing her to fall in love with captain hammer and make Dr. Horrible to become upset. Then later in the story he actually starts to talk to the girl that he has been in love with all this time. Captain Hammer comes to the laundry mat and tells Dr. Horrible about his relationship with the girl. This causes Dr. Horrible to become very upset and make up his mind that he is now going to kill Captain Hammer. When he tries to kill him, it ends up that the gun explodes and kills the woman that he has been in love with all this time.
This movie did a great job of characterization, by making the characters very round and having great depth.

Lake Bonny Park

"I went to Lake Bonny Park for this assignment, and I stayed there for at least 20 minutes." This is my first time walking around a park in a couple years. As I walked around, I started to think about how so many people take it all for granted. This caused me to look around and see how many trees and other parts of nature that had to get cut down, so they could build a baseball field for the local people. It made me think about how nobody seems to care about nature, till they hear about something like global warming. Why does it take a bunch of people giving information about something, to finally get people to appreciate the stuff that has been the all around them their entire life? I have no answer for this question, but I can say that I haven’t sat around and appreciated all of nature around me like I should. Ok now let’s get back to talking about me walking around Bonny Park and all the different things I saw around. I went to the park with Neil from our class and walked on the side walk till we got to the bridge. As we walked on the bridge, we saw a couple people and started they started talking to us. The man was telling us how there was a 10 foot alligator that used to chill under the bridge, but it was getting to big so someone a wildlife person came and shot it. I don’t think this was a true story that the man was telling us, but it got me thinking, what if he is telling the truth. What if someone thought the gator was getting to big and was considered dangerous to the people that come to the park? Thinking about this made me upset, true or not true, this was the gators home and we are the ones that cut down all the trees without thinking about the wildlife that already lives in the area. All in all this was a great experience, being able to read a poem and take in all that nature has to offer.

State of the Planet

The State of the Planet is a very creative poem and fun poem to read. This Robert Hass poem gave me some trouble my first and second time reading I read it. But finally on my third time reading and taking a minute to think back on it, I got an idea of what the author was trying to get accross. Atleast i hope it was what he was trying to say in the poem. The author was to tell us that all life is actually like a dream, meaning that there is a beginnig and a end for everyone. As the author said in the poem, "It is easy for us to feel that our lives are a dream". The way the Author talks makes it kinda obvious to me that he is not a religious person, "we know we're going to die, to be submitted to that tingling dance of atoms once again". I think he is trying to say that of course everyone is going to die, but when we do die and get burried our bodies are just going to disolve back into the atoms that formed us.

At first this article was tough for me to understand, but once it started making sense I found it to be very interesting. I do not agree with the authors views in the story, but I liked the story a lot.

The Other Wind Cont.

Alder finally got to see Sparrowhawk, but since it was such a far trip, when he got there he fell asleep. Once he woke up, he told Sparrowhawk of his dream. Not believing what Alder was telling him he asked how often this dream was occurring. After they finished with the conversation, Sparrowhawk came up with an idea. This idea was for Alder and Sparrowhawk to fall asleep at the same time and he would come into Alders dream. This idea worked and he got a chance to see what Alder was talking about. Even though Sparrowhawk got to be a part of Alder’s dream, he still does not know what he is having these dreams. Sparrowhawk send Alder to see a man with the power of healing. The plan was to have the healer touch Alders arm as he slept, to see if he could go without having this dream. This also worked; Alder finally got a good night sleep without having this dream. But still nobody knew why Alder was having this dream and they did not know what he could do to get it to go away. Not knowing what to do Sparrowhawk asked Alder to tell him all about his life and relationship with Lily and her death. Alder wasn’t sure he wanted to think about the time he spent with Lily, it hurt too much to think about. The reason Sparrowhawk was having him do this is because he thought maybe Alder never let Lily go. After hearing Alders story he was thinking that he was wrong and maybe it was not because he had to get a chance to say good bye. So they both were clueless on why Alder was having this dream, but neither one was ready to give up on understanding Alders dream.

In this book there are many different twists and turns. The author does a great job of making the characters very round and complex.

Enemy of the People

Choose a character and discuss how that character is presented and developed through the play.
Dr. Stockmann- he is a neighborhood doctor, a husband and also a father with 2 young boys. He makes a discovery about the towns spring, realizing that there are bacteria that could be harmful to people. This shows his caring and compassion for the people that swim in this spring. He tries to warn people but his brother, the mayor, doesn’t want people to know about this problem. Even though he means well, every time he tries to help it ends up that people keep turning against him like he is the one in the wrong. Everybody in the town turns against him, but he still doesn’t give in to the mayor and stands by his beliefs. This shows the integrity of the doctor and his perseverance through everything that happens.

Explain one or more of the main ideas explored in the play.

One of the main ideas of the play was how easily a group of people can be persuaded even when the information that they are receiving is completely false. Towards the end of the play, the doctor holds a town meeting to inform the people about the bacteria in the spring. Once the meeting starts, the mayor starts to tell the crowd of people things trying to get them to turn on the doctor before even hearing what he has to say. The mayor’s plan works out perfectly; before the doctor has a chance to speak the crowd tries to get a motion passed that would keep him from talking at all. After some bickering, the doctor gets a chance to speak as long as he doesn’t bring up anything about the springs. So he tries to explain to the crowd how the mayor is trying to make him look like the bad guy. He uses the story of how Jesus was made to look bad even though he was telling the truth. Even after this story, the crowd still doesn’t want to hear anything from the doctor. This proves that groups of people are so easily persuaded, even when the information they are getting is false and makes no sense.

The Other Wind

The Other Wind is the book I have been reading for my presentation in class. This is a story of a man named Alder, who is born the son of a witch. In this book every child that is born from a witch has a special power and his is the ability to mend things. He first notices this gift when a bowl fell out of his hand and dropped to the ground, causing it to break into many pieces. As he picked up the pieces, he started to mend it back together and made it whole again. When his mother found out her sons gift, she sent him to a local sorcerer to be able to master and harness this ability. After he had been there learning for a few weeks, a girl his age named Lily came with the same power as Alder and also wanting to learn from the sorcerer. As they spent a lot of time around each other critiquing there powers, Alder started to fall in love with this girl. He then found out that she was in love with him also, so they got married and Lily got pregnant. Something went wrong when she was about to give birth and both Lily and the baby died suddenly. This took Alder some time to get over but after a while he finally accepted that she was gone and not coming back. But then one night while he was sleeping, he had this dream that he was on top of a hill and his wife was calling him to her. As he got closer, he saw that there was a wall separating Alder from Lily. She kept yelling for him to save her, but for some reason he couldn’t move. She reached over the wall and touched his arm and gave him a kiss on the lips, right after the kiss he woke up. So now since that night, he has the same dream of him on that hill and his wife is calling him to save her but he can’t move. Alder goes to see many different sorcerers about this dream and all of them say that the only person they know of that has crossed the wall of the living dead and come back is a man called Sparrowhawk. Alder has to travel a far distance, but he finally gets to the home of Sparrowhawk and explains to him the dream that he keeps having.

My Character Story

Once upon a time, there was a high school kid named Steve. You couldn’t tell by just looking at him, but he also played backup quarterback on the varsity football team. He was a tall skinny kid, who could not have weighed more than one hundred and sixty pounds and didn’t carry himself like all of the other football players. While the football players would not show up to class and try to be the class clown when they were in attendance. Steve was the opposite, a 4.0 student and he was really to himself. Steve never got a chance to play because Ben the starting quarterback was the best in the state, he had offers from most of the major Division I schools. This didn’t bother Steve; still he would show up at practice every day knowing that the coach wasn’t going to put him in the game on Friday. The only time the coach did talk to him was to ask him to help tutor some of the players on the team. He didn’t understand how the players on the team could get bad grades or get in trouble like they did and still get to play over him. Steve came up with the idea that when a coach is winning, he doesn’t care what his players do as long as they keep on winning. One Friday night after the game Steve got a phone call from Ben, he was drunk and wanted Steve to come pick him up then drive him home. So Steve went to get him, picked him up and took him home. On his way back home Steve kept asking him-self a couple questions, why would someone go out and get drunk and take a chance on ruining their future?

Friday night’s game started like any other game with Steve on the bench but it turned out that this would be a game he would never forget. A freak accident occurred during the game, Ben got sacked and when he was being taken to the ground twisted his knee. He was in a tremendous amount of pain and those who looked on just prayed it wasn’t a serious injury. After the trainers helped carry Ben off the field, with the crowd hushed, Steve felt all eyes were on him. As he was putting on his helmet the coach came up to him and said ‘don’t worry son, I know you have what it takes, you will be fine’. His heart was racing as he ran onto the field and into the huddle. He knew the play call, but for some reason he kept stuttering as he tried to tell his offense. He finally got said the play and the huddle braked, as he walked to the line he kept saying to himself, “relax, it’s just like you have done a million times in practice. Set, hike”, as he took the snap from the center, he fumbled, but was fortunate that his own team fell on the ball. He could see his coach with a worried look on his face and knew that the crowd must think this team has no chance without Ben. As he walked back into the huddle, his teammates were telling him to relax and pick up the first down. This time he took the snap from center, dropped back and threw a forty yard touchdown pass and the nerves were gone. He ended up being the reason the team won the game and was getting congratulated by all of his teammates in the locker room after the game. “Dude you have to come out and party to celebrate this win with us” said one his teammates, not wanting to be rude, he said “why not”. The party was at a kid’s house from school that he didn’t know, but once Steve walked in the door of the party, everyone started yelling “Steve, Steve”. He couldn’t believe how much things could change in one night and one football game. After not drinking all his life and thinking the people who did were stupid, Steve had his first drink and after that came another and another. He woke up the next day in one of the bed rooms of the house that held the party, with a pounding headache and not a lot of recollection of what happened last night. As he walked home, he couldn’t stop trying to remember what happened last night and hoped that he didn’t do anything too embarrassing. Still nervous about that night, Steve walked into school Monday morning not knowing what the kids were going to say to him, hoping that maybe if he did do anything embarrassing they didn’t remember either. The only thing he heard all day was congratulations about Friday night’s game and how we needed to win again this week. On his way to second period, a couple of teammates came up to him and said how they were going to skip class and get something to eat and wanted Steve to come with them. Trying to fit in with the team, he decided to go get something to eat and skip class. This became a daily routine for a couple weeks, his grades started slipping and he became just like all the other typical jocks. The next couple games Steve did great, leading his team to the playoffs and a number one ranking in the state polls.

Just when he started getting used to this life style, he heard from a teammate that Ben’s knee is doing a lot better and that there is a chance he could play this week. Showing up to practice not knowing what to think, Steve saw Ben in his practice uniform looking like he was healthy and ready to play. The coach explained to Steve that this is Ben’s team and now that he is healthy, he would be the starting quarterback for this week’s game. Steve couldn’t believe what he was hearing, after all the hard work and games that he won to get them in the playoffs. He was just being thrown to the side for someone who was the starting quarterback but hasn’t been there for the last couple weeks. There was nothing he could do, the coach has made up his mind and that meant back to the bench. Friday night’s game was a tough battle through all four quarters, as Steve watched the game from the bench cheering for his team to win even though he wasn’t the person leading them. A late touchdown pass from Ben sealed the victory for his team and made him the hero again in everyone’s eyes. After the game Steve wasn’t asked by any of his teammates to the celebration party and it seemed like he was back to the old times before he got to be the starting quarterback. On his way home after the game, he started to think about all the stupid stuff he has done in the last couple weeks and how much he got caught up in that lifestyle. After that night, everything went back to the way it was before Ben got injured. Ben was back to the role of the hero in the school and Steve was back to being the quiet kid that kept to himself and got good grades.

Movie Night

The Tale of Despereaux. I went into movie night last Thursday with a mindset of why do I have to watch this little kids movie, in what way is a story about some rats going to help my character story. Then when there was trouble with the volume, I started thinking ok come on tell everyone they don’t have to wory about watching the movie and all can go home. So you could say I didn’t have the best mindset going into this movie. But as the movie went on my mindset started to change from why are we here to wow this movie does have some good messages. So, as the movie went on I started to think about all the different characters and what they represented and if they were round or flat characters.
The thing that first got me thinking was seeing how the mouse had courage and chivalry, this was interesting because the whole time his parents were telling him this isnt the way a mouse should act. This caused me to think about how we act today, how often do you see people today show courage when it causes them to be looked at as not normal. How about Chivalry, it seems like men don’t even know what this word means anymore.
It wasn’t just the main character Despereaux, but the rat was also a well rounded character. It was this rat that started all the problems that happened in the story, by him falling into a bowl of soup and causing the queen to faint to die. From this the princesses started to hate all rats and she ended up being sad all the time. But the rat ended up saving the princesses life from the other rats that were attacking her. After this she ended up forgiving him and everything went back to the way it was before he fell into the soup. This shows that the rat is well rounded because he doesn’t act like all the other rats and try to eat the princess, instead he saves her and shows his courage and remorse for the pain he has caused her.

Character

Win. Win. Win. Losing will not be tolerated, is what she has heard from her coaches for most of her life. She can’t even imagine the last time she actually had fun playing soccer. Yes, scoring a goal was exciting, but it was only a momentary happiness then it is back to the same old mood. As long as this sport was paying for her college, she tried to put a smile on her face and kept thinking about how she only had to put up with it for four years.

• I went to a place called skate world, where it was 70’s night and I sat there and watched all the people that were dressed up


• The 1st person I saw was a guy wearing cut off jean shorts and a flannel shirt. He reminded me of Kelso from That 70’s Show.


• The next person I saw was a girl wearing bell bottom pants and a tie-dye shirt and a brown vest. She had a look on her face that made it seem like she was nervous, like she was hoping people like her outfit.

Thursdays Poem

Reading and analyzing the poem we read in class was a fun assignment. When I first saw the title, I was like wow a poem about an onion. But when I read through it the first time I started to think that the poem was about some of the things that we all take for granted. Since the poem was about food, I started thinking about all the different fruits and vegetables we eat every day. Not thinking about the farming that went into getting us those fruits and vegetables or about the manufactures that had to pack and ship it, so all we have to do is go down to the local grocery store.
Then I read it for a second time and stopped thinking about food and started to think about parents and/or friends. What I mean is that sometimes we take our parents or friends for granted, without even wondering about their life history. Also, I started thinking about how people look back on their life as a finished product and forget about the things that went into their life to get them where they are now. Just like in the story when they eat the finished product and think about the meat that went in, but forget about the taste that comes from the onion added to make the finished product.
Another thing that helped me analyze the poem was getting into new groups and hearing different people’s views and understandings of the same poem. An example, a girl in my group told me how she understood the poem to be talking about woman’s rights. At first I didn’t understand where she was going with this thought but then she explained about how woman used to have no rights. So woman were like that onion, no one worrying about their history and not realizing the major influence woman put on the world.
After all of this I came to believe that there is no correct way to analyze this poem, it is all about the readers personal views.

Sports Illustrated

In a Sports Illustrated magazine article, the author talks about different NFL head football coaches’ views on their players getting into fights at practice and the punishments for the team if anyone gets into a fight. While most coaches say that they try and break up the players when they start fighting and either send those players home, or make the whole team run wind sprints. The new Jets head coach Rex Ryan is different; he says that if his players start fighting he lets his players fight till they are done. He said that after watching film of his team last season, they needed to toughen up and start getting each other players back.
This is a big question for all coaches; in a physical game like football where do you draw the line for your players? In such a physical game like football, players can get caught up with all that adrenaline and one little thing can set them off. Even though I don’t agree with Rex Ryan’s theory on allowing his players to fight, I understand his theory of letting his players fight to bring them closer. I know that people looking from the outside in and who haven’t played football might not understand the discussion here; they look at it as there is no reason for player to fight. The only way I can explain coaches letting the players fight, is to tell these people that yes the players dont like each others when they are fighting, but when the offensive player come to help another offensive player while they are fighting a deffensive player. This causes the offensive group to come together and the deffensive unit to also come together. This is the struggle coaches go through with bringing their team together and making sure they have each players back. With new players coming in every year, coaches have to get these players to commit to their system and have them grow close to their teammates. These are teammates that players are going to be around each other for close to a year, so it is important for them to respect and be there for each other.

The Painting

This painting that I made is supposed to be of Jesus on top of a hill, showing his power and grace to his people. The person at the bottom of his hill is supposed to be a follower of Jesus looking at him and knowing that the time has come for his return to the earth. I got the idea to paint this from the part in Joel were it says…
“Before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it will come about that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be delivered; For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem There will be those who escape, As the Lord has said, Even among the survivors whom the Lord calls”.
For some reason when this assignment was given for everyone in the class to pick out something they liked most from the book of Joel and paint it, I stopped and thought about this part of the story. When I first read the book of Joel, I found that this was the part of the story that caught my attention the most. I like this part of the story the most of any because it shows that the day of the Lord is coming and it is soon, it also states that those who are believers will be brought by the Lord into the kingdom of God. “…whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be delivered;” This was a fun assignment for me because it got me to take my thoughts and my understanding of the text into a painting, while it also got me to try to in vision what this day is going to look like when the Lord comes for his people.

Questions
1. What are your interpretations of this part of Joel?
2. What do you think of my painting?

Reading to the pond

After reading Joel, my favorite lines were;

The Lord roars from Zion, And utters his voice from Jerusalem, And the heavens and the earth tremble But the Lord is a refuge for his people And a stronghold to the sons of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord your god, Dwelling in Zion, My holy mountain So Jerusalem will be holy, And the strangers will pass through it no more.

This part of the text stood out the most from the others while I was reading. I don’t know what it was that really caught me, so I read it over and over again. After a couple times reading this part of the passage, I came to conclusion that I liked this so much because it shows the power of the Lord. I know this is going to sound different to a lot of people but in a sense I visualized the Lord as a lion. Just as a lion roars to show his power and to show the others that he is the king of all. I know it funny thinking the Lord as a lion but it was just the first thing came to my mind. For me, reading this and thinking about how close we are to this coming to fulfillment and trying to picture what it would be like was crazy. This was a fun passage to read and it helped me a lot to read it out load at the lake. Doing this helped me actually take in all the passage was saying and get the whole message.

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When LilacsLast in the Dooryard Bloom'd

a) I found most of this poem to be very challenging for me. The language was very Shakespeare sounding to me. For example:
"O what shall I hang on the chamber walls?
And what shall the pictures be that I hang on the walls,
To adorn the burial-house of him I love?
b) I understood this to be a poem about the time during the civil war but the author makes it seem like the soldiers that died during the war had it easy or something.
h) I overcame the difficulty of reading this poem by going online and reading different peoples interpertations of the poem. I really was struggling reading the poem till I read what others were getting out of the poem and once I saw what they were saying in the text, it became easier to read and kinda understand.

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Frankie and Johnny

This song raises so many questions about what actually happened between Frankie and Johnny. The way the story begins, Frankie and Johnny were lovers. Oh, lordy how they could love". The key phrase for me was "were lovers". This shows that before anything in the story happened, they were already referring to thier love as past tense. As if to say they used to be lovers but now they are not. So if you look at the story from this point of view, you start to think maybee Johnny broke up with Frankie prior to what happened in the story. So if this was true, then this story Frankie could not take the break up. She still looked at Johnny as her man, no matter what. Another part of this that makes this assumption seem true is when Frankie went to the saloon. She approached the bartender, "Has my Johnny man been her?", then the bartender call her by her name as if to show he knows her. Then he said, "If he's your man, if he's your man, then he's doin you wrong". This shows the bartender knew her but did not know that Frankie and Johnny were lovers. That makes it seem that either he did not know that they were lovers or he knew that they had broken up and did not know they got back together. So maybee after she shot Johnny, Johnny felt bad because he promised to always be true to her.

New Blog

This is a story about soldiers life in Vietnam during the Vietnam War and one soldiers love for someone who didnt love him. Even though the soldiers would rather be anywhere else in the world, they are in Vietnam doing their duty for their country. Without knowing the reason or purpose of what they were doing, they still carried out their orders. "By daylight, they took sniper fire, at night they were mortered, but it was not battle, it was just endless march, village to village, without purpose, nothing won or lost". The narrator is explaining that the soldiers didnt believe in what they were doinghad any purpose but they still went on through it all.

One soldiers love for someone that didnt love him. War can be a very lonely place for soldiers, so they try to think about their previous relationships or love. For this soldier it was a college girl back in New Jersey, that he went out on a date with but like him the way he liked her. This is sad because he is in the middle of a war and all he can think about is this girl. Then one of his soldiers gets shot and killed while he was day dreaming about this woman. So he burns the notes and pictures he has of her and tries to go on without thinking about her.

Questions

Did he really love this girl?
Could he of saved the soldier if he wasnt day dreaming?

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

This is a story about two couples sitting around a coffee table talking with two of them telling about their previous love or lack thereof. This story also shows two very different views on what true love is and what it is not. Terri and her husband are telling their friends about her last relationship before she met Mel. “Terri said the man she lived with before she lived with Mel loved her so much he tried to kill her”. Terri is trying to explain that even though people act crazy and try to harm you, which does not mean they don’t love you. While Mel disagrees, he states “I don’t know what you call it, but I sure know you wouldn’t call it love”. I would have to agree with both of them, her boyfriend obviously had something messed up in his head but that doesn’t mean he didn’t truly love her. Later in the story it goes on to tell you that he used to stalk them and make numerous threats, then kills himself. This shows that he had many mental issues, but it doesn’t mean he didn’t love Terri. Then they talk a little about Mel's ex wife and thoughts about her.
After finishing the article what I find very interesting is that Mel said he truly loved his ex wife. Even though He states that she is allergic to bees and he has contemplated killing her using bees. This is hypocritical because he said earlier that Terri’s past relationship wasn’t true love because of her ex trying to murder her. Then he states that he was truly in love with his ex wife even though he has thought about killing her.
Questions:
Do either one of them actually know what true love is?
Do we sometimes past judgments without looking at our own actions or statements first?

My first blog

Literature has never been a favorite of mine. I mean do not get me wrong i can read articles in the sports section or on ESPN.com all day, but sitting down and trying to read a book has never been a passion of mine until last year. I guess it all started back when my teacher in 4th grade read aloud the first Harry Potter book to us. I know it actually wasn't me reading it, still i could tell books were not for me. I never thought that i just had to find something that really interested me and give it a shot. So i would start books and be 20-30 pages in and get bored and never pick that book up again. Until I started reading the most significant book i have ever read to this day. Before we get to that i want to tell you about my most recent memory of literature it takes place a couple months ago when i read a book called The Shack. It is a great book about a man's heart break and then struggle with his faith. All though this was an amazing book, the most significant piece of literature to me has to be Tony Dungy's Quiet Strength. This was the first book that could grab my attention from cover to cover. I could not seem to put it down, I always thought reading wasn't for me till i picked up this book. So most of my life i thought literature did not matter, but than i came to realize that I just have not found a book for me.