25 random facts about me

1. I am 15 years old.
2. My favorite date is April 25, its not too cold and its not too hot.
3. I have a dog named sally.
4. I play volleyball.
5. I went to New Covenant Christian School before I went to John Carroll.
6.  I play tennis.
7.  I am a Night Owl.
8. My favorite meal is breakfast.
9. My favorite restaurant is Waffle House, I go there every Sunday.
10. My favorite T.V. show is How I Met Your Mother
11. My favorite cartoon is the Simpsons.
12. My favorite subject is math.
13. My easiest subject is Spanish.
14. My favorite place to be is on a beach somewhere.
15. My birthday is April 2, 1997.
16. I golf with my spare time.
17. I like thunderstorms.
18.  I like to swim.
19. I like to canoe and jet ski on the bay
20. I ski and snowboard.
21. My favorite football team is the Eagles: I have season tickets to them.
22. I've always wanted to go to space.
23. I like to travel.
24. I like to play basketball, but I don't play for any teams anymore.
25. My favorite food is ribs.

Goals

I have many goals from the near future to the end of my life. For academics, my immediate goal is to finish out the year with all good grades. After that to finish high school and to get into a good college.  After college I want to open a business or create my own company. For sports and athletics some immediate goals would to get faster.  Also over the summer, to get faster at swimming for the swim team.

Chris McCandless Opinion

              My opinion about Chris McCandless is that he was very brave and courageous person.  Even though me might not have been the smartest person when thinking about a plan to get out and survive he was very intelligent with "street smarts" and very good social skills which got him very far in his adventures.  I don't think a man who was crazy in the head would be able to make it all the way to Alaska without any money or street smarts. I also don't think he was a crazy person just because he wanted to get away from the "normal" world, but courageous for doing so.  I can see where he was coming from, trying to stray away from the normal working world and live on his own.  I don't see him as stupid, but a somewhat role-model for showing the world that they can achieve whatever they want if they put their mind to it.  Although he did not survive, I think that living almost 4 months in the wild alone, without proper experience and proper supplies was a very good feat.  I feel like if he had made some more premeditated decisions he would have made it out alive with an exceptional story to tell, which shows people that they can do whatever they want, and achieve anything they want with just a little more premeditated decisions.  Overall, Chris McCandless was not a crazy person, but just a regular guy who wanted to stray away from the "normal" world and live a little.

The Harlem Reniassance

Part 1


1. The Harlem Renaissance is the name for a movement in African America culture in the 1920s and 1930s.
2. The renaissance had a big influence on African-American literature, philosophy and music.
3. It has some other names besides the renaissance like the "Black Literary Renaissance", '"The New Negro Movement" and "The flowering of Negro literature".
4. The Harlem Renaissance began in Harlem, New York after World War I.
5. The movement began to affect the thinking of many African-American writers and artists.
6. They challenged the thinking of many white Americans towards black Americans.
7. They refused to be treated as if they were not equal.
8. They refused to just copy the sorts of writing, art and music that white Americans did. 
9. They wanted to celebrate the fact that their African culture had survived through the terrible years of slavery, and was being "reborn".
10. That is how we get the word renaissance from them wanting to be reborn. 


Part 2




Duke Ellington :


1. Duke Ellington was a composer and a pianist during the Harlem Renaissance.  
2. He is considered to be one of the most important musicians in the history of recorded music, and is called one of the greatest figures in jazz music.
3. He became even more popular after he died and was given a special award citation from the Pulitzer Prize Board in 1999.
4. Duke and his band played for both white and black people, which was unusual during the renaissance.
5. One of Dukes most popular songs is Take the A train.  


Fats Waller:


1. Fats Waller, born Thomas Wright Waller, was a jazz pianist, organist, composer, singer, and comedic entertainer.
2. He was the youngest of four children.
3.Thomas Wright Waller started playing the piano when he was six and graduated to the organ of his father's church four years later.
4. At the age of fourteen he was playing the organ at Harlem's Lincoln Theater and within twelve months he had composed his first rag.
5. Waller's first piano solos (Muscle Shoals Blues and Birmingham Blues) were recorded in October 1922 when he was only 18 years old.
6. One of his most popular songs is "Ain't Misbehavin'" which was composed by him in 1929.


Jelly Roll Morton


1. Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe,  who was known known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and early jazz pianist, bandleader and composer.
2. He was born in 1885 and died in 1941 living the majority of his life during the renaissance.  
3. Morton is perhaps most notable as jazz's first arranger, proving that a genre rooted in improvisation could retain its essential spirit and characteristics when notated.
4. His composition "Jelly Roll Blues" was the first published jazz composition, in 1915.
5. Morton is also notable for naming and popularizing the "Spanish tinge" of exotic rhythms


Citations:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlem_Renaissance
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Ellington
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_the_%22A%22_Train
http://myhero.com/go/hero.asp?hero=Marsalis_Ellington_bk06 (picture)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fats_Waller
http://www.morethings.com/music/stormy_weather/fats_waller/index.htm (picture)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jelly_Roll_Morton
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/musician.php?id=9632 (picture)

Aspen, Colorodo

Aspen is an authentic mountain town in Colorado, best known for its world-class skiing in winter months and as an outdoor playground for mountain biking, rafting, fly fishing, rock climbing, hiking and more in warmer months.

I would like to go to Aspen to go on a skiing and snowboarding trip. I feel it would be a once in a lifetime opportunity to see all the beautiful scenery.  Also, i might like to go in the summer as well as the winter  because of all the different experiences from mountain bike and hiking trails in the summer, and snowboarding in the winter.  I feel it would be a very different vacation than the usual beach trip.  Although the weather would be very cold, I think i could handle it. 

Before I go, I would need to brush up on my snowboarding skills because of the huge mountains and experienced snowboarders who travel here. I would need to buy heavy coats for the weather and buy all new winter gear. 

This  photo of the magnificent Pyramid Peak, part of the summits of the Maroon Bells, a short drive from Aspen, which you can apparently see whenever going to Aspen.  

Article: http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/best_places_USA/good-morning-americas-10-beautiful-places-america/story?id=14235228#.T0fe5PES34s

Picture: http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&safe=off&sa=N&biw=1366&bih=643&tbm=isch&tbnid=Y_rgOoESaL9rbM:&imgrefurl=http://www.peakware.com/peaks.html%3Fpk%3D3200&docid=cCie_V3Kk5khhM&imgurl=http://www.peakware.com/img.php%253Fsrc%253D4984&w=500&h=599&ei=t-JHT6D0M8eLhQep0ICIDg&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=516&sig=109381354619643216431&page=1&tbnh=125&tbnw=99&start=0&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:0&tx=43&ty=49

Motifs in Midsummer Night's Dream

Jake O’Brien

February 10, 2012

English 9

Yellow

Motifs in A Midsummer Night’s Dream

            Motifs are literary terms used in Shakespeare literature that can still be found today in every book and movie you see.  According to Wikipedia motifs are “any recurring element that has symbolic significance in a story”. Authors can use motifs in very obvious ways or subtle ways for the reader’s interpretation.  Shakespeare uses motifs to display a vastly deeper meaning in his plays and to show his themes in Midsummer Night’s Dream. 

            Shakespeare uses motifs throughout his play Midsummer Night’s Dream to display themes such as magic, dreams, and blind love.  The first motif in midsummer night’s dream is magic.  Magic was used throughout the play but at one point of the play it was the main focus.  Oberon stated, “The juice of it[flower] on sleeping eyelids laid will make or man, or woman madly dote upon the next live creature that it sees.”(2.1, 176-178)  This quote is about the flower that Puck puts on the lovers eyes.  The next motif in this story is about blind love, which also has to do with magic.  The term blind love is used throughout this story but was made prominent when the flower’s nectar was placed on the lovers eyes. Demetrious pleaded to Helen, “O Helen,  goddess, nymph, perfect, divine! To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne? This shows blind love because Demetrious doesn’t actually love Helen because he loves Hermia, but because he is under a spell, he is blindly in love with Helen.  Dreams are obviously a main part of this story because the title of the book has dream in it but that’s not the only reason.  Throughout the play many characters have dreams either good or bad sometimes even foreshadowing.
  In Midsummer night’s dream Hermia had a dream where she was being eaten by a snake and when she was getting eaten Lysander didn’t help her.  This dream foreshadowed the event in which Lysander started loving Helen and not Hermia.  Overall, Shakespeare was a great author who knew how to implement good motifs into his writing.

Motifs are not only a thing of the past, but are still occurring in this modern world in almost every book written and movie filmed.  Not only are Motifs used in books but also in commercials.  Advertisers use the same message to get a point across to the viewers.  An example would be Geico, Geico uses the same message over and over in their commercials to get the same message about saving money.  A modern day book example would be Harry Potter six, in that book the main character Harry, needs to trust his friends over and over to achieve a goal throughout the book.  A modern movie example would be Spiderman 2, like Midsummer Night’s Dream the theme in this movie is love. The main character Peter does anything he can do for a girl he loves a lot like Lysander.  Motifs are obviously not just a thing of the past but are still going on today. 

            Any story ever made can’t be well made and completely enjoyable without motifs.  Without motifs a story would just be events happening without any meaning.  Shakespeare was great at implementing many motifs in all of his stories, which in turn gave his stories deeper meaning.  Currently many stories have motifs like Shakespeare about love and other mystical things like magic. Motifs can be found anywhere and everywhere in any story, book, or movie, back in Shakespeare’s time and in this modern world.

Works Cited:

Silver, Alain. "Motif (narrative)." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. 8 Dec. 2011. Web. 12 Feb. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motif_(narrative)>.

Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York: Washington Square P, 2003.

Jake's Into the Wild Blog for English

Into the wild is a non-fiction that was written by Jon Krakauer. This book is about how a boy who graduated high-school and then decided to travel the world. Then the boy tries to survive in the wild with only minimum supplies. Nobody back home knew about his adventure and after about 100 days people found his dead body.   They concluded that he died from eating seeds of a plant that was poisonous. Their conclusions was proven wrong about him dying from the seed, but he died because the seed had mold on it from the boys wet bag which he kept the seed in.   They also found his jornal that the boy was carrying around and they try to retrace his steps.

Midsummers night dream themes


http://www.webspirationclassroom.com/view/1080134a2a18f

Semester 2

          This past semester was a good one for me because i achieved my goal of getting all A's and B's in my classes. The spots where I was most challenged was writing the essays; either the essay relating to the summer reading book or the short story essay, I always have trouble getting the thoughts gathered to put on paper.  The spots where I did well this past semester was in the vocabulary and grammar sections.  On almost all the Vocab tests I got an A which was very good for me compared to last year in 8th grade.  Also on the grammar quizzes i got all good grades as well.

       This coming semester I think will be harder than the last semester, but I still will keep my goal of getting all A's and B's.  Some goals for English would be improving on my reading skills.  I can improve my skills by making a goal of reading at least one book on my own time per quarter and stay reading the books assigned in class.  For writing, I can improve on writing my essays by improving my theses statement, and organizing my thoughts more when writing.

        The English exam to me was "half and half" , I thought some questions were easy but some questions were  hard.  If I could restudy for the exam I would defiantly study the literary terms more because you needed to know those for the multiple choice, and you also needed to know them to do well on the essay.

Digital Citizenship-

-- Using the social networking website to only post nice things, not posting mean things, cursing, or harassing people.  Using the website the way it was meant to be used.

 

Do's

1. Only use nice words

2. Only become friends with people you know

3. Block your profile so that random people can't see it

4. Use the website to connect with old friends
5. Use it for educational purposes
6. Be careful what you tweet
7. Only post clean videos
8. Only post clean pictures

9. Give nice compliments to friends

10. Reconect with distant family members

Don'ts

1. Don't say anything about a teacher
2. Don't Curse
3. Don't use it during school
4. Don't Sexually harass people
5. Don't make fun of people

6. Do not make any threats to someone

7. Don't post any embarrassing photos of somebody without their permission

8. Don't give out personal information

9. Say stuff that you wouldn't want to say to their face
10. Cuss just because somebody else did