This week in ELA, we've been going over the question of what it means to have humanity. Humanity plays a big role in Elie Wiesel's memoir, Night. It honestly took me some time to come up with a definition that I know properly explains the meaning. My mind was pondering. What I thought would be so easy to define turned out to take me a little more time. I knew humanity was how people treat others, but I didn't quite know how to say it. Finally, I came to a conclusion that was that humanity is us caring for others. We were given the gift of being able to love one another.
Through history, we learn that there have been many conflicts. These conflicts are, of course, between people. Humanity, in my perspective, is something currently being "worked on." I say it like that because we aren't exactly working on it. There are still many conflicts in the world that do not show any sign of equality or love for one another. Humanity, in my opinion, is when people come together to help each other. Unfortunately, we don't always show that and it'd be great if we, together, show humanity.
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"Uniformed prisoners with triangular badges are assembled under Nazi guard at the Sachenhausen concentration camp." This week, we read the first 27 pages of Night by Elie Wiesel. Night is a non-fictional book about a boy's (Elie) experience in the Holocaust. Although it's good to expand my knowledge in this subject, the Holocaust is something that I find uncomfortable to get deeply into because of how terrible people were treated. I just can't imagine how frightened and hopeless men, women, and children felt to be in a position where you could be alive one second and completely forgotten the next.
Reading this book leaves me feeling helpless because this is something that look place years ago, and the Jewish most likely felt alone while going through this terrible time in history. Although I already knew none of this was going to end well at all, I had very little hope when Moshe the Beadle went to tell everyone about what took place in the forest. But of course, no one believed him because they all thought it was too surreal to be true. I found that sad, how no one can actually believe something like that is happening to people. This shows us even more how inhuman this is. There are two things that really struck me that I can't even get off my head. One of them was when the Germans (under Nazi rule) took the Jews into trucks and put them in the forest, where they were told to dig. Once they were done, they got shot and fell into the hole they just dug up. They dug their own graves before getting shot into them. Another part of the story that impacted me was when Elie said that infants were tossed in the air and used as targets for the machine guns. I'm not sure words can even be put together to describe how horrible and barbaric that is for people to be able to do that, especially to babies. All these signs past the people's eyes and they still can't seem to get the idea that life for them is changing. That makes the story more tense, knowing that people can't believe what other's are saying. I just can't imagine myself being in that place and I could only think of how millions of people spent the last years of their lives like that... terrified of waking up and terrified of the people around them. If there's one thing I love talking about, it's how everyone around us carries a different story. I think it's amazing how we all hold these stories about what we've gone through because it's something that could change one person's life but in no way impact another's. In a TED Talk our class recently watched, a man by the name Dave Isay shared with us about his journey in creating a website called Story Corps. This website is designed for people to interview others about their story. For example, Isay decided to share people's interviews in his presentation. In one of the interviews, a woman named Sarah Littman was interviewed by her son, John who has Asperger's Syndrome. That interview seemed to touch people, including Isay.
As I mentioned in the beginning, I love talking about the different stories people hold. I've come to realize that that is one of the main reasons why I love photography. The things I love taking pictures of most is people, mainly because their current emotion can be seen in the photograph if it's taken correctly. The photo I included above is one of my favorite pictures I've taken because the bench holds four different people who look nothing alike. For all we know, they may not even know each other. Anyway, that's something that I still have to figure out a way of putting together in words for others to understand. This TED Talk was overall really interesting and Dave Isay's idea of making this website is brilliant. "Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe has recently fallen into my list of favorite poems. Poe never seems to upset me in his writing. Maybe it's his crazy mindset that I love... I'm not sure. But he has left with a great, suspicious poem that has seemed to get everyone thinking, "Who is Annabel Lee?"
Not only did his fancy diction intrigue me, but so did his way of calmly conveying the message. I love poems like this. The ones that really get you thinking about symbolism and especially the ones that make you go crazy until you find the meaning. (I'm talking about all the poems Mrs. Gunter picks for us. They all make me go crazy.) In the poem, Poe clearly mentions how deep his love is for this woman who's name is "Annabel Lee" (Didn't see that one coming) and the way he describes it makes me feel even worse about my writing. "And neither the angels in heaven above Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee" "But we loved with a love that was more than love- I and my Annabel Lee; With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven Coveted her and me." Poe constantly included how beautiful Annabel is, but he described his love her in different ways each time he did. Both the stanzas above are my favorite ones in which he showed his love towards her. It's great and sweet how he just spills out his feelings about this one person to us, but why does he do it? No one's really sure who this is about, and no one got to ask Poe since this poem was published after his mysterious death in 1849. And I don't want to infer anything on who this poem is written about 1.) because I'm scared they will come to haunt me tonight and 2.) because all I know about Edgar Allan Poe is his awesome literature. I also want to mention my all-time favorite stanza in this poem and that, of course, is the last stanza. "For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling--my darling--my life and my bride, In her sepulchre there by the sea, In her tomb by the sounding sea." In this stanza, I feel that Poe is mourning over Annabel's death and even though he's explaining her to us, I believe he is talking to her. Does that make sense? What I'm trying to say is that this whole poem is Poe's way of communicating to whoever Annabel is. Is that creepy? Yes, I mean it's Edgar Allan Poe. So I'm ending this blog post by saying Edgar Allan Poe is awesome and he is my writing goals. Will Mrs. Gunter ever give us a happy poem? Edgar Allan No. (sorry I had to) Car Radio- Twenty One Pilots
I ponder of something terrifying 'Cause this time there's no sound to hide behind I find over the course of our human existence One thing consists of consistence And it's that we're all battling fear Oh dear, I don't know if we know why we're here Oh my, Too deep, Please stop thinking In class, we read a poem that really stuck out to me. "O Me! O Life!" by Walt Whitman is a poem about human existence and pretty much what everyone goes through in at least one point of their life. Questions about who we are and why we're here happen to keep reappearing in our heads because we have not been given an answer yet. The reason why I included song lyrics above is because I thought of that song while I was reading the poem... it just seemed really similar because they were hovering over the same topic. "...of the questions of these recurring" from "O Me! O Life" is clearly stating that we are constantly thinking about our lives and in the song "Car Radio," the singer/writer (Tyler Joseph) states that he's pondering of something terrifying: our human existence. Both "O Me! O Life!" and "Car Radio" include the word "faith" and I believe they did that because it plays a huge role. Poem- "Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish" Song- "There's faith and there's sleep We need to pick one please because Faith is to be awake And to be awake is for us to think" If Tyler Joseph is saying that faith is to be awake (alive) and Whitman is saying there are countless people who are faithless, the message is that there are still so many people who aren't "awake" yet because they're still searching for the light. I chose the word "light" because in Whitman's poem, he's said, "Of those who vainly crave the light" and at first, I thought he meant people wanting to end their life. But as I read again, I realized Whitman is trying to convey that the light is a symbol for the answers for peace and happiness. Both the song and the poem are greatly written to show that we are all battling through life with constant fear and unanswered questions, but why? We should just understand that all that matters is right now and we are existing and we will contribute something to the world. :) This week in ELA, we read Frank Stockton's "The Lady, or the Tiger". At first, I had no idea what I would be getting myself into... and that's based on the title because we're all thinking it. It's a weird title. It begins introducing a king. Inferring that the author wanted this story to seem like it took place a long long time ago because of the way things are explained, we realize that the king has different a view of justice. Now, honestly, justice itself is a hard word to define without saying too much... it's something that some people don't even believe in. In other words, not everyone believes that there is such thing as justice. (I'm referring to Clarence Darrow's words, "There is no such thing as justice-- in or out of court.")
As the story continues, something weird is revealed. Something that completely explains the title. We learn that the king picks a person, whether that person is innocent or not, and puts him on trial. That sounds interesting already, but the trial isn't like any other. Everyone is in this arena where the person on trial is in front of two doors. The man would have to pick a door (without knowing what's behind it) and whatever is in the door reveals what would occur next. Behind one door stand a beautiful woman and if the man chooses that door, they would have to get married on the spot no matter if that man is already married or even has his own family. What stands behind the other door is a tiger and if the man obliviously decides to open that door, those watching would have to witness a terrible death. The story then goes in to one deeply in love marriage. The man in the marriage is chosen by the king to go on trial. But who is the woman? The woman is the princess. This shows us that the king obviously does not care and he would do anything to please himself for the sake of his opinion of justice. The princess finds out what is behind what door that day, and she knows the lady who will possibly get married to her lover. We would infer the princess would choose the best for her lover and tell him to choose the door with the lady because the story does explain in love they are with each other. And even if they weren't in love, I don't think anyone would have the heart to technically "feed" someone to a tiger. But the lady that would be behind one of the doors that day was a beautiful lady the princess had extreme jealousy over. I kept reading, wanting to find out what door the princess would tell her lover to choose. While in the arena, the princess sits down and her lover can see her clearly. Inferring she would know what's behind which door, he looks at her and she can tell what he's asking. She points to the right and what happens next? A cliffhanger. Wow. Great. I love those. We don't know what's behind the right door so we don't know if the dude gets eaten or married. Never thought I'd say that. Although some people think the princess would tell her lover to open the door with the tiger because of her jealousy over the lady, I don't think anyone would be able to bare with that thought in their heads that they killed someone by a tiger. It's just not a human thing to do. I mean, maybe for the king. But that leads me to thinking, well, the princess is the daughter of the king... so maybe she does have that kind of heart? Maybe she can be able to do that without the guilt hovering over her shoulders for the rest of her life. The short story, "Lamb to the Slaughter" by Roald Dahl is a perfect example of character descriptions and actions fooling the reader into what the characters actually are and how the story actually ends. At the beginning of this story, we are introduced to the main character, Mary Maloney, and she is described as a lovely, calm, pregnant housewife waiting patiently for her husband to return from work. The story made it obvious how Mary was deeply in love with her spouse, Patrick Maloney. Although, Patrick arrives and doesn't show the same affection toward his wife. Mary grabs him a glass of whiskey, they sit, Mary talks, but Patrick hardly answers and when he does, he answers plainly and without care. This tells the reader how this marriage is strong only on one side. Now maybe the husband is tired from a long day of work, or perhaps he had a bad day, but it reads that this is the routine that's "followed" every day. As the story carries on, Patrick decides to talk about something to Mary. The story doesn't contain the actual information that is being told, but by what there is, we can infer that Patrick is leaving his wife. "And I know it's kind of a bad time to be telling you, but there simply wasn't any other way. Of course I'll give you money and see you're looked after." Mary, at first, seems to react calmly toward the news. She wanted to act as if she never really was told this. She goes to get supper-- the lamb of a leg. As she sees Patrick in the living room, back facing her, she stopped and remained silent. Then Patrick said, "For God's sake," he said, hearing herbs not turning around, "Don't make supper for me. I'm going out." Then at that exact point, Mary, without thought, swung the frozen leg on Patrick's skull and eventually, Patrick collapsed. She had shattered his skull. But the question is, was this planned before? Did she plan to kill her husband? Or was this a crime of passion? At first, people may say it's obviously a premeditated crime, that she planned this perhaps after she heard the news and when she was getting the supper. But I stayed with my initial opinion. I thought that once she stopped in the living room after she noticed her husband standing there, she was hesitant as to whether she should hurt him with the frozen lamb leg in her hands. Because as it says in the text, she's pretty much holding the talisman like one would hold a bat. "She carried it upstairs, holding the thin-bone end of it with both her hands..." It was not until after Patrick said he would go out that Mary sort of "freaked out" and hit him with the leg. And Patrick being a detective, Mary knew she had to react quickly, which she did. Have you ever seen videos of yourself when you were younger? Have those videos ever made you cry? Why? Because you want to be young again, or because you want to restart-- to change things? To be a better person?
Or have those videos every made you think about how fast life has gone by? You remember when that video was taken, and what happened in it as if it occurred just yesterday, but you look at yourself now and you're so much older. So much more mature. And you don't fully realize until you've seen those videos that your life will now just zoom quicker and quicker and your childhood gets lost further and further each day. And you realize that the people in those videos-- other than yourself-- may no longer be the same or they're just not there any more. You don't know them anymore, and the more the days go by, the more you forget about those people and the more they forget about you. Or are those people just really not there? Are they gone forever? Those people you knew when you were younger. Those people you played with, laughed with, talked with, are now gone and all there is left of them are your memories. I've always thought about this. I don't know, maybe I just think way too far into things, but I always think about how fast life goes by. People say it's short. It's not short, it's just fast. And at first, that may not even make any sense. But if you think about it, like I have for a long time, you slowly start to understand how one thing and thought quickly leads to another thing or thought and that just keeps repeating and repeating and repeating itself until we just... die. One thing that has been heard from adults every day is that they wish they could get their childhood back. Why is it that when we are in childhood, we complain about it but when we move along, we complain about where we are, and as we move further we complain more and more and all we want to do is go back and we expect ourselves to be happy. It may be because as life moves on, things get harder. But it could also mean that as life goes on, we get older and we are expected to be more mature-- to stop acting like children and to be present. This is why we want to go back, because although people say childhood ends at age 12 or 13, we get fewer years than that to actually act and feel like a child. But those years that we are experiencing childhood are the years we will never want to forget. When we wouldn't care about how we look or what we say, but all we would care about is making ourselves happy and making life count. And that is what's rare as we get older and move on. We don't forget to make ourselves happy, we just forget how to do it. (All three pictures below are taken by me) Over time, we realize there are several options we can choose to express ourselves, other than talking. One way many people choose to express themselves is through dancing. Dancing has always been a common hobby for people to let out their emotions and thoughts. In 2010, The LXD (Legion of Extraordinary Dancers) appeared on a TED Talk and four dancers preformed to the audience and showed them this interesting way of communication. The founder of The LXD is a filmmaker and the first time he realized how amazing communicating through dancing is, is when he directed a movie in around 2008 called Step up 2: The Streets. He was so intrigued by how incredibly talented these dancers are, that he started The LXD.
One of the dancers who preformed on this TED Talk, Lil'C, said, "I attempt to reflect the balance between weight, energy, space and time." Those words stuck out to me, along with Madd Chad's words, "When I dance, I want people to question the reality of what they're seeing." By what these dancers said, we can all agree their passion in what they do is strong and although their type of dance is different, along with Kid David and J Smooth, we see all these different perspectives that unify at the end to show the similarities in their work. With all their different and unique styles in dancing, we can conclude that it's possible to take something to make it our own and being fine with what other people make out of it. The TED Talk video included quotes by Kid David that got me thinking. "It's your body reacting to certain sounds of music." This shows his perspective of how he expresses himself in a way of communication, along with another quote by him, "It's all about detail, everything I move has purpose." The second quote strongly states that every move he does is simply another word and all these moves put together tells a story. More towards the beginning of the video included an interesting quote by Madd Chad that stated, "When I dance, I want people to question the reality of what they're seeing." I got out a lot of interesting things from this TED Talk that taught me to expand my thoughts on how to express myself. Even if your way is not through talking or dancing, there are still so many ways to show people your passion and how you can communicate with it. Click here for The LXD on TED Talk When you first approach a stranger you immediately examine what they look like, but what they look like may have nothing to do with whom they are. You are completely oblivious to who a stranger is, but this stranger leads to so many stories and people. It’s amazing how this works, and it’s not only in that case. There are so many other things that we don’t fully understand. Not only do we not fully understand strangers, of course, but we also don’t fully understand ourselves. It can be so frustrating and emotional to argue with yourself about who you are, and this shows us that we weren’t given enough answers to figure it all out.
Being trapped in your own mind and thoughts seems liberating but turns out to be completely terrifying. Imagine not being able to speak at least some of what you’re thinking of. Well, this is what Martin Pistorius felt when his world took an unexpected turn into constant worries if no one will understand him again. He slowly fell apart, as he lost his ability to move by himself, then to simply make eye contact, and then came the never-ending nightmare he would have to face when he lost his ability to speak. As a test finally came back positive from the hospital, the Pistorius family found out their son, Martin, has cryptococcal meningitis. The doctors said Martin was beyond hope. Time passed with the uncertainty if there was still life in Martin. He tried numerous ways to communicate with his parents that he is still there, listening, watching, and learning, but there was nothing he can do because of the inability to do it. Several years have gone by and Martin can now communicate with a special machine called “The Grid” that allows him to finally say what he’s been forced to keep in. He described the whole thing as an “out of focus image”, that at first, you can’t make out what it is but slowly it comes into focus until you can see it in crystal clarity. I had a grandmother who slowly fell apart, just like Martin. Although her case was not the same as his, she forgot how to walk, talk, and simply do anything herself. I remember being around five and peeking into the room she was being taking care of in by my mother. I saw someone I barely knew yet loved so much, die right in front of my eyes, day by day. I know she was trapped in her own thoughts and I know she was terrified. Like any stranger you can meet, I have a story that needs to be shared and not just caged in my mind because we never know when a day could come where we wouldn’t be able to do what we’re doing right now. It’s probably a mystery as to why I chose this picture to be next to this piece of writing. As you can see, the photograph includes a baby and her father. One thing we don’t really know is why we forget what it’s like to be a baby. This is something so simple, yet so unknown to everyone. Babies are all trapped in their own thoughts. They are not understood by anyone, but themselves and that is soon to disappear because that’s when life starts happening and that’s when we learn that understanding is one of life’s most challenging parts of humanity. December 10- dust When I think of dust, I think of the word, "annoying"... because, well, it's annoying. I always get the urge, no matter where I am, to take all these cleaning tools and clean all the dust all around me. But if I do that, It'll be a little weird. Anyway, I think "dust" was added into the advent photo challenge because since we are getting ready for a new year, we are leaving all our failures and things such as that (so, the "dust") behind. The picture above is a picture I took of the dust on a table in my backyard and I had my brother sit on one end of the table for the picture to be less boring I guess... I don't know, I use him for almost all of my pictures in general.
December 9- baptism Above this text, I included a picture I took from when it was rainy and cold not too long ago. But now it's sunny and annoying again in Southern California and just like me, the weather can't seem to make up it's mind. Anyway, I chose this picture rather than baby me after my baptism because this picture includes water, and that is what reminds me of the word. Also, because baby me isn't so wonderful. I think "baptism" is in the advent photo challenge calendar because it is cleansing of the original sin, and I feel like that strongly correlates to Advent.
Hearing is a beautiful thing that unfortunately not everyone gets to enjoy. I'm not sure about you, but I like sobbing to inspirational videos on YouTube of deaf people hearing for the first time in their life, or for their first time in a long time. Anyway, in my opinion, the word, "hear" was included in the advent photo challenge because not only is this month extremely noisy with all the gift shopping and parties for different celebrations, but it is a time when we listen/read/learn stories about Jesus and the Bible, since December 25 is Jesus's birthday. December 8- hear Preparation is a big part of the last month of the year. It's a time when we get ready for a day of giving and celebration of Jesus' birthday, and preparing for a whole new year that's not too far away. I feel that the reason "prepare" is included in the advent photo challenge is because of, well, preparing for what is ahead of us. The way we prepare is by shopping, decorating, and (hopefully) being kind to one another. The photograph above this text is a picture I snapped from upstairs overviewing my Christmas tree, to show one way in which I am preparing. December 7- prepareDecember 6- shine In the photograph that i have included above, it shows a picture that I took of my friends while they were walking. That actually sounded less creepy in my head. Anyway, I chose this angle to take the picture because of how the sunbeams appeared, and I chose this picture I took about a month ago to show the "shine" it includes. The word "shine" means brightness and the sun is just a huge ball of that. But in this advent photo challenge, I believe what's being said is that God helps "shine" our path. In other words, he brightens it up for us to know if where going we're He intends us to go.
December 5- open The word "open" can mean various things. For example, open chances. In the advent photo challenge calendar, i believe that this word was used for the beginning week of advent because we are open to chances and change. It is a new month filled with wonder and love, and a new year is coming just less than a month away. Whenever December comes, I think of this work exactly because I know all the things I am open to. And yes, of course, we are opening presents on Christmas.
Fellowship is something we all look for. It's having kindness and care toward other people you feel close to. The photos above are pictures I have taken with my friends (I know, it's weird. I have friends?) I think fellowship was added into the advent photo challenge because friendship is something that is cherished and during this season is when we gather with family and friends. December 4- fellowship Although the sun hasn't been shinning brightly for the pass few days, I still manage to find a picture of it beaming through some tree branches in my photos. I honestly have pictures of everything, from roosters with blonde hair to my brother sleeping on the ground surrounded with furry zebra blankets. Anyway, December 3rd is dedicated to the sun on the "Advent Photo a Day" calendar. The sun is obviously a very important necessity for every living thing on Earth, and that is mainly for the light it provides throughout the day. It is said to show us the way, and I believe that is why it was included in the advent photo challenge. The sun is a beautiful thing, and we should learn to cherish it and allow it to help us when we need it most. December 3- sunDecember 2- time We all cherish time. Time to sleep, time to work, time to play, time to learn... there's just endless amounts of possibilities that one can do with their time. Although, most may take time for granted. Yes, we love it, but we may usually take this love for it too far. This is called not using our time wisely. And of course, I can relate to those hearing that all the time from different people. "That happened because you chose to not use your time wisely." "Next time, you should learn to use your time wisely." etc. I believe that "time" was chosen to be entered in this advent photo challenge because we should take the time we have to... well, use it. And I think it was placed during the beginning of advent for this reason.
Hands allow us to preform countless of acts every day. Today is the first of December and that means we are getting quite close to Christmas, which is a huge celebration of shopping, baking, decorating, giving, and receiving. With those things we focus on during this spirit-filled month, we are preparing for Jesus' birthday, and I believe that is the reason December 1st is marked as "hands" for the Advent Photo Challenge. Above this text, you will see photographs I took of my brother while he was helping decorating our family's Christmas tree. I feel that it greatly resembles today in the "2014 Advent Photo a Day" since today is focusing towards hands. We should all take better care of our hands and not take them for granted, because it looks to me that we don't show enough care for them. December 1- hand Whenever I see white clouds in the sky, it reminds me of how beautiful life is. I feel that the bright shinning clouds dancing around in the sky brings beauty to the living and non-living things just below them. In the picture above this text, you can see that there aren't any clouds... at all. Although there haven't been any clouds... at least I tried. Anyway, clouds are beautiful things and I believe it was chosen to be the first on the advent photo challenge simply because clouds are a symbol of hardship and darkness, but it is placed on the last day of November to show our hardships and darkness fading away. November 30- cloudsCommunication
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