Clouds - Text Analysis

Author's Note: I wrote this piece to reflect on the song "Clouds" by Zach Sobiech. I also wrote this as my text analysis    piece. 

Well I fell down, down, down

Into this dark and lonely hole

There was no one there to care about me anymore

And I needed a way to climb and grab a hold of the edge

You were sitting there holding a rope

And we’ll go up, up, up

But I’ll fly a little higher

We’ll go up in the clouds because the view is a little nicer

Up here my dear

It won’t be long now, it won’t be long now

When I get back on land

Well I’ll never get my chance

Be ready to live and it’ll be ripped right out of my hands

Maybe someday we’ll take a little ride

We’ll go up, up, up and everything will be just fine

And we’ll go up, up, up

But I’ll fly a little higher

We’ll go up in the clouds because the view is a little nicer

Up here my dear

It won’t be long now, it won’t be long now

If only I had a little bit more time

If only I had a little bit more time with you

We could go up, up, up

And take that little ride

And sit there holding hands

And everything would be just right

And maybe someday I’ll see you again

We’ll float up in the clouds and we’ll never see the end

And we’ll go up, up, up

But I’ll fly a little higher

We’ll go up in the clouds because the view is a little nicer

Up here my dear

It won’t be long now, it won’t be long now

This song was written by a 17 year old boy who was diagnosed with cancer and only had a few months to live. This piece was written for his family and friends that he loved. I really like this song because he tells you that just because he is going to die it doesn't mean that you wont ever see him again. I think that he knows that he will see all of them in heaven one day so he isn't scared that he will soon die.  Another point I think is in this song is that he wanted to live his life to the fullest until he died. This song is a really good song for anybody who is going through a rough time or just wants to listen to it. Overall I really like this song and I think it has some really great points made in it. 

Gold Rush

Author's note: I decided to post this piece because I realized I never posted it. 

It is 1848 and today is the day I am setting out to go to the new state that was taken from Mexico. I have heard only few ventured to this remote place in the beginning , but I have heard that many people from the united states and even around the world have gone to this place. They all have a reason though. I hear that there is gold in the new place and I want some. Therefore, I am going to go and get some. I am going with a few others and leaving my family here for safety reasons. I will be walking from here. It shouldn't be farther than most of the places I have gone but it is still very dangerous, that is why I am not taking my family. 

Now that I am here , I have noticed that this environment looks dramatically different than where I am from. I have noticed that these gold mining companies have permanently altered this new places landscape, choked its rivers with sediment, and repeatedly buried thousands of acres of low-lying  farms. I looks nothing like what I am used to. I have also noticed that the majority of prospectors and miners, as well as many of the entertainers, merchants, packers and speculators who participated in each of the gold rushes, are Caucasian. Since I just got here and I am starving I am going to try to find something to eat. As I pass through the town,  I see that a lot of the prices have been raised fairly high. I am guessing that it is because everyone is finding this "gold". I figured that I should probably go and try to find some if these prices are going to stay this high. 

I have now been here for a very long time and I am starting to get irritated. I cant seem to find much more gold and when I do it comes in little bits. I am really getting sick of these prices for everything! Not everyone can find gold and these people just don't care that not everybody enough to pay for it. Ever since I got here more and more people keep coming  because of the fact that there is gold. The boost in its population is outstanding! Since I have been here I noticed that there has been a decrease in people wanting gold. Apparently, the new gold is wheat. People are starting to want wheat more than gold. I've decided that I want to go back to where I originally came from and possibly bring my family back here sometime soon to start up a wheat farm. 

                                              

The Lucky One: Compare and Contrast

Author’s Note:  I wrote this essay for my district writing assessment. This piece is comparing the book The Lucky One  to real life. 

The book  The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks is about a man named Logan Thibault who was recently in the marine core. While in the marines, he finds a picture during a surprise bombing.   He then finds himself being safe everywhere he goes with this picture causing him to drop out of the army to go find the girl in the picture. Realistically many people wouldn’t drop out of the army just to go and find someone because  of a “lucky” picture. Although some people might.  Apparently Logan thinks that this is the right thing to do though. This book has some parts that can be unrealistic, but overall the majority of it happens to describe things could happen to a lot of people in real life.

One thing that I found was really unrealistic in this book was when the author explains that Logan walked from Colorado all the way to North Carolina. In reality, probably know one in their right mind would want to walk that far. When Logan meets Beth, he is about to tell her that he found her picture when she assumes that he is applying for the job at her dog business. This causes Beth to ask questions about him. When she finds out about the fact that he walked that far, she thinks that he is a very strange man, giving herself a reason not to hire him.  She finally decides to hire him. The reason for this is when Logan tells Beth, ““Most people don’t know how to appreciate the silence. They can’t help talking. That’s one of the reasons why I wanted to walk. ” Compared to people in real life,  the fact that he walked that far shows that it and unrealistic and different from real life.

Although walking so far is very unrealistic, there were many realistic things in this book. An example of this is the fact that Beth had been divorced and hadn’t gotten a date in a very long time. Since Beth had her son Ben, not a lot of men were looking for someone who already had a kid. I thought about this when Beth said  “Every now and then, I’d meet a guy and think that we were getting along great, and suddenly I’d stop hearing from him. Not only did he stop calling, but if I happened to bump into him sometime later he always acted like I had the plague. I didn’t understand it. I still don’t.” I think that this kind of situation is common for people who are looking for a relationship and already have a child of their own. In the book  Logan realizes that he likes Beth and doesn’t care if she has a son. In real life, sometimes it’ s really rare to get a relationship like that. Overall this is a similarity between real life and the book.  

Along with the fact that Beth has son, she is also divorced. Divorce is very common now a day’s which makes this big part of the book very realistic. In the book Beth doesn’t like the fact that her ex- husband, Keith, is always so bossy to her son. This is also common for people who have divorced parents. Sometimes that is one of the reasons that the people get divorced. In this case , it was the reason. Ben also doesn’t agree with the fact that Keith bosses him around.  I thought about this when Ben said to Beth “I'm not going to live with you!" a small voice shouted from the kitchen doorway.
Beth looked past Keith to see Ben, his expression horrified. Ben started to back away. "I'm not going to do it!”.

In conclusion this book has many similarities and differences to real life. Overall I think that this book has more similarities to real life the differences. Some of the differences in the book make parts of it really unrealistic, but still  believable to the characters in the book. I think that this book is a good example of what a lot of people’s lives are like today. 

Gym Essay

Author's Note: I wrote this essay for gym class. :)

I have always not really enjoyed  gym. I always wondered what was the point of just running around for an hour and playing games. Ever since I came to Asa , I noticed that there is more to gym than just having it be play time for a half an hour. I learned that gym has gotten a lot harder over the years. For example, we no longer run for 3 minutes before we start class. Instead we start out with a ten minute jog and sometimes dynamic stretching. I personally like this because of the fact that it gets us energized for the whole class. This also helped me start running on my own time. I never really used to take an interest to running but ever since I started second hour gym, I realized that it’s actually not that bad and it’s a good way to stay active and healthy.

While learning how to stay active inside and outside of school, I have also learned a lot about being healthy and treating your body right. During this semester I have started eating healthier and being more healthy about my body. I don’t just eat whatever I want and leave it at that anymore. Instead I think about what I eat. Now that I have started eating healthy I have learned that it does more than keep you in shape. This year I learned that it can also help you with what your health will be like in the future. For example,  I learned that if you don’t take care of your body , there will be risks for  getting diabetes or heart attacks when you are older. Over all, I have learned a lot about my overall health and what I should do to stay healthy .

While learning about staying healthy, I have also liked the fact that we get to challenge our selves  by setting goals. For me I don’t really like that fact that we have to improve on what we got in the past but I do like setting personal goals for myself. Being social in gym has also helped me with my goals. I have friends who like to push me to do my best at my goals. Overall I think that P.E. has helped me become a healthier and more physically active person. 

Touching Spirit Bear- Point of view

Author’s Note: I wrote this essay to explain how changing the point of view of Cole in Touching Spirit Bear to the point of view of Garvey, his parole officer would affect what the reader thinks about each character and the story itself.

In the book Touching Spirit Bear, Cole is the main character that everyone focuses on. Most people don’t really think about some of the other characters like Garvey, also known as Cole’s parole officer.  Since most people are only thinking about how they would see things from Cole’s point of view or even from the spirit bear itself ‘s point of view, it leaves Garvey in the middle to make up his own point of view of things. From the perspective of Garvey, Cole isn’t a bad kid, although most people think he is for the things he has done. In every event that occurs in the book, we will all have a different perspective of the situation.

One way that Garvey’s point of view could affect how the reader thinks about  Cole is Garvey  makes it look like Cole is a good kid when he is not.  An example from the story is when Cole says “Garvey always visited me when I was in the detention center. I could never figure out why he visited me so regularly. Garvey always found the time to see me every day.”Don’t get me wrong, he changes to a pretty good kid in the end but in the beginning he has a horrible personality. For example, if told from the kid Cole almost beat to death Peter’s perspective, he would give readers the exact opposite interpretation of Cole. It would make him look like the worst person in the world! However, if it were told from Garvey’s perspective readers would get the wrong idea of Cole.  For example, when Cole is sent to the island to learn his lesson, Garvey makes it look like it’s going to help Cole overcome himself and learn his lesson. When told from Cole’s point of view the reader is convinced that going to an island for a year to learn his lesson is just a way for Cole to get out of going to prison. Therefore , Garvey would change the readers interpretation of how going to the island would make Cole feel.

In addition to the readers interpretation if Garvey was telling the story, something else very important is the way the story is being told could also change the interpretation of the reader. Since Cole is the one telling the story originally, he takes the readers through his whole experience. But, if Garvey was telling the story, the reader would miss out on how Cole feels about the island and being on it. Since Garvey only comes to visit a few times during the book, the reader wouldn’t get much of an idea on how the island builds Cole into a better person.  Another thing that would affect the way the story is told when Cole is on the island he sees  and gets attacked by the Spirit Bear. If told from the perspective of Garvey, the readers wouldn’t experience the attack of  the Spirit Bear and how Cole changed his mind about being a better person because of the attack. An example of this is when Cole says ““A whale migrates but it doesn’t have a home…I feel like the whale.”This made me think that since Cole said this, the reader would know why he felt like this. If it were Garvey telling the story, the reader would have absolutely no clue what Cole meant by this.  Lastly, if Garvey was telling the story, he would never experience the  attack of the Spirit Bear therefore not giving the author a purpose to name the book Touching Spirit Bear.

 “ We don’t do anything.” Garvey said. “Everything is up to you now. Edwin and I will stay a few days until you finish building the shelter. Any questions, fine,  but you’re carrying the ball now. You’re going to have to prove carrying. You’re going to have to prove your commitment. Get the fire started and set up the tent.” Garvey thought to himself , what would have happen if this kid actually did change his attitude. Would people ever forgive him for his actions? Garvey then headed down to the shoreline with Edwin as the two of them watched Cole set  up this tent. Garvey then spoke to Edwin, “ Do you really think that Cole wants to change, or do you think it’s all just a sham for him to get off the island?” Edwin then replied enthusiastically, “ I really do think that he wants to change.” Garvey then battled with himself against about whether Cole wanted a new attitude, or whether he was just going to go back to the way he was.

Furthermore,  interpretation  of the book wouldn’t be the only thing that would change. The scenes of the book would also change because the character , Garvey, telling the story wouldn’t be involved in the important events  like I mentioned before. As you read a story, you have to make sure that you know which character is telling the story otherwise you won’t be able to understand it very well. The next time you read a story try to think of what the story would be like and how it would affect you perspective if the story was told by a different character.

Why Cheat?

Author's Note: I wrote this piece so because one of my goals was to get a 10 in conflict and resolution. This is a new piece I decided to write. 

It’s amazing how someone can change in just like that. John- the main character in the book Dear John by Nicholas Sparks, knows exactly how it feels for someone’s personality to change out of nowhere. For someone like john, who is in the army, he never expected that he would ever find someone to love until he was out of the army. When John spends his army leave in his hometown in Willimgton, North Carolina, he meets savannah who he falls desperately in love with. When John has to go back to the army after his leave, him and Savannah keep in touch by writing letters. Soon, Savannah finds out that John has to stay out in the army for another year and then makes a terrible decision. She starts dating and soon marries another man. Once John hears of this he is absolutely heartbroken.

The fact that John has to keep making the decision to stay in the army when it needs him most is a huge conflict in the book. Not only does John feel pressure that he has to go , but it also affects the relationship between him and Savannah.  This conflict is person vs. self. The reason that I say this is because of the fact  that John had a fight with himself to decide whether he should fight for his country a little bit longer, or he should just drop out and go and be with the love of his life. Soon John just decides to go another year in the army. This conflict is resolved when John starts to get more leaves from the army to go see Savannah. Yet, when John has to go back from his leave, he gets the letter that shows him he shouldn't have chosen the army over savannah, given that she cheated on him.

Savannah being unfaithful to john  is also a major conflict in this story. This type of conflict is person vs. person.  When john was away , Savannah started falling for Tim , who was also her best friend. When John hears of this,  he completely sheds  Savannah out of his life. He stops writing to her, calling her, and he doesn’t take anymore leaves to see her. John thinks that by doing this, it will help him forget about Savannah. Eventually John realizes this and takes a leave to go and visit Savannah. When John gets there, he sees that Savannah still wants to be friends with him and eventually they are. This is the resolution to Savannah cheating on John.

Another book that shares the same conflict as Dear John is The Notebook. When Ali has to leave her summer home to go to college, her and Noah’s love is ripped apart by separation . Noah writes to Ali everyday but never gets a response This conflict is person vs. person.   Soon , Ali finds a new man who wants to marry her and they are soon engaged. When Noah finds out about the marriage, he decides to stop trying to get her back. This conflict is resolved when Ali comes to find Noah . They soon fall back in love and their relationship is resolved when Ali breaks off the engagement.

                                                                                                                                                                                              

Broadway

New York City. That is what comes to my mind when I think of Broadway. Most people just want to go to New York to go to Fashion week, or to go see the statue of liberty. My perspective is totally different. One of the only reasons I would want to go  to New York is to go see a Broadway Show. The reason for this is because I love the theatre. I have always loved being in and seeing different plays. The one play I am literally dying to see is Wicked. Wicked is  a show about the witches in “The Wizard of Oz” and why they made the decisions they did. My favorite character in the play is Elphaba. Elphaba is the wicked witch in the play. During the show Elphaba meets the good witch , Glinda. During the story it shows the reason why Elphaba turned into a grumpy old witch and how everyone started despising her. Although Wicked is on the top of my list, I also would really love to see the show “Mamma Mia” on Broadway. When I first watched the movie, I automatically loved it because it had so much singing and dancing. Over all I just love the theatre. I hope that one day I will be able to go to Broadway to see one of my favorite musicals!