Modern Day Mythological Times

When I read "The Trojan Horse", by Virgil, I was fascinated that it connected to a modern day TV show episode.  In "The Trojan Horse", the Greeks brought over a giant wooden horse to the Trojans.  Little did the Trojans know that some of the Greek army were hiding in the horse.  They came out during the night and attacked the Trojans.

Same as in the original version, I-Carly's Spencer, goes to prison to help the prisoners make an art project.  They decide on making a huge pair of pants.  One day, Carly, Sam, and Freddy come home from school.  They're all just casually talking, when all of a sudden, 2 prisoners come out of the pair of pants.  They escaped from prison through the pair of pants.  Freddy, Carly, and Sam all get duck taped to chairs.  

Some similarities between I-Carly and "The Trojan Horse", are the fact that they both had people coming out of a large object for a bad reason.  In "The Trojan Horse", army from the Greeks came out of a giant horse and killed the Trojans at night and killed them so therefore the war was done.  In I-Carly, prisoners escaped out of giant pair of pants into Carly's house.  The differences are that in I-Carly the prisoners helped Spencer make the giant pair of pants.  In "The Trojan Horse", the Trojans didn't have any idea that the Greek army was in the giant horse.

I though it was a good remake because it was funny.  I really didn't even realize it was way back from the mythological time until Ms.Hanson said something.  It was funny because of the fact that it was a giant pair of pants.

A Clean-Well Lighted Place Re-vision

Author's Note: This is a re-vision of my other piece, "A Clean-Well Lighted Place".  I am trying to score a 10 in organization.

An old deaf man sits at the bar alone drinking his alcohol.  There is a young, impatient, selfish, and rude waiter.  The other waiter is a middle-aged, patient, polite, and respectful waiter.  The young waiter just wants to leave the restaurant and close up.  He doesn't want the old man to keep drinking.  On the other hand, the middle-aged waiter can connect to the old deaf man because he is somewhat old himself too.  The old waiter connected to the old deaf man because he felt at a time that he couldn't sleep and was depressed as well.  The old waiter's personality is sort of happy on the outside, but crushed and alone on the inside.  The young waiter's personality is rude and selfish on the outside, but on the inside he is just really tired and wants to go home.  In the story, A Clean Well-Lighted Place, by Ernest Hemingway, the cafe represents a safe and secure place for the old deaf man, and is very different from the bar that the old waiter visits.

Even though you should feel sympathy towards the old, deaf man, I feel more sympathetic toward him watching the videos.  The music plays a big role in the videos because it sets a sympathetic and sad tone towards the end.  In the beginning of the video the music sounds sort of scary and suspenseful.  The light in the café resembles comfort for the old man.  He knows he can take a bottle of brandy and go home, but that wouldn’t be the same as sitting in a well-lighted place with company of others.  Although he doesn’t really communicate with the waiters, he still likes their presence. 

 While I feel more sympathetic toward the old man in the videos, I also feel bad for the older waiter as well.  The bar that the waiter goes to at the end of the night is really loud and not very well lit.  He didn't seem to enjoy the company of others because there were too many people.  This bar sort of represents a dark place for the waiter because he did not like it there.  Personally, I didn't mind the long screen shots because I could listen to the music in the background and focus on that.  If I were a person who was bothered by the screen shots, I probably wouldn't have finished the videos in the first place.  The short story was obviously different because you couldn't see anything, only read and visualize.  I liked the videos better because I am more of a visual learner so I like to see things.

Although I feel more sympathetic for the old man in the videos, when I read the story I could picture how the bar was very different than the cafe.  It was noisy and there were a lot of people there.  As apposed to the cafe, where there was no noise and it was clean well lit place.  In my opinion, the cafe would be a much more pleasant place to be in because it wasn't loud and there weren't people mauling each other's faces.  

Everyone feels a little lonely sometimes. Whether you're going through a break up or loosing a loved one, everyone has that moment of despair.  Everyone needs to cope somehow.  The cafe was the old mans coping place away from his home.  In life everyone has that moment of depression, even if it's only for a little while.  You just have to keep your head up and go forward.

Connecting With Ribbons

Author's Note:  This is my cause and effect piece on "Ribbons" by Laurence Yep.  I tried to focus on actually writing about the cause and the effects of the story in detail.

When I read "Ribbons", I was really interested in why they bound the women's feet in China. They used to tie satin ribbons around their feet to reduce the pain.  In "Ribbons", by Laurence Yep, two little kids'  Grandmother comes to live with them.  The kids studied the Chinese culture before she came into town.  When she gets there, she favors the little boy because boys were really important back in China because they were the bread winners.  The girl shows her Grandmother her ballet shoes with satin ribbons on them.  The Grandmother or "Paw-Paw" gets really upset when she sees them and demands her granddaughter to hand them over. The little girl refuses to give them up until her mom comes into the living room and says something.  All of a sudden the little girl started to cry and went up to her room.  The climax was the satin ribbons being taken away and the separation between the granddaughter and the Grandmother.

With the kids' grandma moving in with them and the fact that Grandma took away her granddaughters ballet shoes, everything started to get heated.  When the little girl noticed she wasn't getting a lot of attention from her own grandmother, she decided to show her her ballet shoes.  Her grandmother wasn't pleased at all to see the satin ribbons.  She actually told her granddaughter to bury and burn them!  Obviously the little girl did not like hearing that something she was really passionate about was hated by her grandma.  This specific part of the story was the setup of why Paw-Paw and the girl started to avoid each other.  Whenever they saw one another in a room, one of them would leave room simply because they did not want to be in each others presence.

Although the grandma and the girl weren't communicating, the little girl talked to her mother about the whole situation.  She was very confused on why Paw-Paw didn't like her shoes, but it wasn't the shoes that she didn't like, it was the satin ribbons.  Then, the little girl talked to her mother about her grandma and why she was so mean to her about her ballet shoes.  Her mother finally told her that back in the day in China they used to bind the women's feet, and the satin ribbons would stop the blood flow to keep their feet small and to reduce the pain.  The little girl realized why Grandma was so protective and touchy about that certain subject.  She started to feel bad about being so mean to her Grandma, so she went to talk to her.  Her grandma actually began to cry because she didn't think that her little, sweet, granddaughter would understand her frustrations and pain towards satin ribbons.  After they talked, it was almost like the ribbon brought them closer together.  There was a metaphorical ribbon around the two in the end of the story symbolizing togetherness and friendship.  

Even though the little girl talked to her mother and apologized to her grandma, the disconnection with the girl and the grandma still happened in the beginning.  If that never happened, there would be no climax of the story, therefore a boring story overall.  Just the fact that there was that one scene with the Grandma yelling at her granddaughter, it created a sense that there was heat between the two.  If the little girl never showed her grandma the shoes, then the grandma would've never yelled, and the whole story would've been all happy butterflies and unicorns.  

In conclusion, the story ended on a good note.  The little girl and the granddaughter made up and built a imaginary satin ribbon around their love.  Satin ribbons obviously meant two different things to the grandma and the girl, but in the end they figured out a way that they could both enjoy ribbons and be happy.  Overall, I thought it was a short quick story to read that taught you many life lessons.  One being, don't judge someone unless you have a really good reason to back it up.  Second of all, in the end of life, you may end up liking the person you thought you would've never had similarities with.

Response To Ribbons

Author's Note: This is a short response to Ribbons.  Comparing China's culture to ours.

What's the differences between the Paw-Paws cultural to ours?  They used to bind the women's feet so they were "attractive".  They tied ribbons around them to stop the pain.  We don't bind our feet in America.  But in America, some women starve themselves to be skinny. Also, teenagers cake on make-up to make themselves pretty.  But in reality, they look like a clown or cake face. We try to be someone were not to impress others.  

I personally think it's a bad thing because God put you on earth to be you.  Not to be someone your not. If you try to act a certain way to impress someone, it's almost like you are insulting him for not liking yourself.  But back in the day in China, they probably didn't think of God; just how their feet looked.  I could not even imagine the pain these women went through.  I think sitting in a desk for 70 minutes is hard enough, I would never be able to survive my feet being bound.  

Psyhchology

Authors Note:  This is an essay on why I want to become a psychologist and some important Psychologists to know about before you become one.

Sigmund Freud was a Austrian neurologist who became known as the founding father of psychoanalysis.  He came up with the theory called, “oedipal complex”.  Psychology is a hard degree to get because you have to go through many different steps to become a psychologist.  I’ve always wanted to be one and I started to study the field of psychology along with other theories of psychology and Sigmund Freud and his theories.   

Oedipal complex is a term in Sigmund's theory of psychosexual stages of development.  This is when a boy is between the ages of 3 and 5 and he starts to feel jealous of his father.  He wants attention from his mother so he begins to dislike his Father.  The exact opposite for girls is called Electra Complex.  They feel jealous of their mother because they crave attention from their Father.  The term was named after the character in Sophocles’ “Oedipus Rex” who accidently killed his father and married his mother.  I think this is kind of a weird theory because when I was young, I didn’t feel this way about my Mom.  I wanted to be by both of my parents.  Maybe because I have 3 older brothers and we all just wanted attention from anyone.

Even though Sigmund’s’ theories are a bit crazy and weird, I still want to become a psychologist.  I think it would be fun and interesting to learn about how and why people think a certain way.  For example, how would you describe the color “blue” to a blind person.  You couldn’t say, “Oh it’s the color of the sky,” because they have never seen the sky before.  My brother has an anatomy class in high school and he always comes home talking about the human brain and how it works.  I started to get fascinated by this because I never really thought about the brain, simply because what teenager really thinks a whole lot about anything?  When I first started researching psychology, I had to read the material over and over again just so I could understand what I was reading.       

Although I want to become a psychologist, I want to know more about how and why you dream.  I found out that when you dream it’s usually about something that craves a lot of your attention.  Also, things in your dream can represent different things, such as a train going into a tunnel can symbolize sexual intercourse.  At least that what Sigmund Freud thought.  On the other hand, Carl Jung had a different opinion. He thought that you dreamt because you were reflecting on your waking self and working through your issues.  When we sleep our brain goes through 5 different stages.  Stage 1 is a light sleep and you could wake up.  Stage 2 is moving into kind of a heavier sleep.  Stage 3 and 4 are our deepest sleep hours.  The 5^th stage is rapid eye movement or REM.  Your brain slowly slows down throughout the stages so that in stage 5 you can have REM.

With more studying about why and how we dream I will begin to understand the brain a little bit more.  Sigmund Freud and his theories are really weird and hard to connect to because I’m still young.  I am going to try to become a psychologist when I’m older because working with the brain is actually fun and interesting to me.

Being Overly Nice Isn't Always Nice

I thought that they way the Mom talked to the little boy was very rude and stereotypical.  She was trying to prove that all colored people are poor, big, and know how to sew.  Boyd proved her wrong.  I sometimes feel this way when I'm with one of my friends.  She tries to finish my sentences and it really bothers me.  In Pewaukee, we have vast cultural schools.  We have many different races here so we don't care what you look like or how you dress.  I mean sure there's a few people that will judge you, but that's only because they feel like they are better than everyone else.  Shirley Jackson was trying to teach us that not all people are the same and don't judge a book by it's cover.  Also that if you are a certain color, you should act a certain way.  Which isn't true. 

Response To A Clean Well-Lighted Place

In the story there is two very different waiters and a old man.  One is a young, impatient, selfish, and rude waiter.  The other one is a old, patient, polite, and respectful waiter.  Then there is this old deaf man who is drinking at the cafe.  The young waiter just wants to leave the restaurant and close up.  He doesn't want the old man to keep drinking.  On the other hand, the older waiter can connect to the old deaf man because he is old himself too.  The old waiter connected to the old deaf man because he felt at a time that he couldn't sleep and was depressed as well.  The old waiters personality is sort of happy on the outside, but crush and alone on the inside.  The young waiter's personality is rude and selfish on the outside, but on the inside he is just really tired and wants to go home.  The cafe represents a safe and secure place for the old deaf man because that's where he feels he can be himself and doesn't feel alone there like he does at home.  

When I read the story A Clean Well-Lighted Place, I didn’t feel as sympathetic to the old man because there is no music in the background.  The music plays a big role in the videos because they set a sympathetic and sad tone towards the end.  In the beginning of the video the music sounds sort of scary and suspenseful.  The light in the café resembles comfort for the old man.  He knows he can take a bottle of brandy and go home, but that wouldn’t be the same as sitting in a well-lighted place with company of others.  Although he doesn’t really communicate with the waiters, he still likes their company. 

The bar that the waiter goes to is really loud and not very well light.  He didn’t seem to enjoy the company of other because there were too many people.  This bar sort of represents a dark place for the waiter because he did not like it there.  Personally, I didn’t mind the long screenshots because I could listen to the music in the background and focus on that.  If I were a person who was bothered by the screenshots, I probably wouldn’t of finished the videos in the first place.  The short story was obviously different because you couldn’t see anything, only read.  I liked the videos better because I am more of a visual learner so I like to see things.