Speaking of Courage

    

     The chapter "Speaking of Courage" of the book, "The Things They Carried", focuses on Norman Bowker and his memories of Kiowa's death. The name of the title is a little confusing, since the simple fact of Norman not saving Kiowa is sort of cowardly, but then I realized it takes a great amount of courage and strength to talk about someone's death, especially if it happened right in front of you. During the Vietnam War there were thousands if not millions of land mines and other hidden traps which gave the soldiers the constant fear of being killed and that's what makes it hard for Norman to talk about Kiowa's death because he knows that it could have easily been him who died in the war. However, all of the soldiers exhibit examples of both courage and cowardice. Tim O’Brien, for example, was considering jumping out of the boat and swimming across the border into Canada in order to avoid going to war, which is saying he’d rather be shunned by his family and never seen them again for as long as he lives instead of fighting for his country and making it safer for his family. Bowker says that if it wasn’t for the smell of the shitfield he might have been able to save him, but just like he wasn’t able to save Kiowa he can’t stop thinking about the moment that he let Kiowa drown in the field.

Vietnam War

   The US aided the French by supplying them $1 to arm them with 300,000 small arms in order to help the French train Vietnamese soldiers. The Vietnam War was a long, costly armed conflict that pitted the communist regime of North Vietnam and its southern allies, known as the Viet Cong, against South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States. The war began in 1954 (though conflict in the region stretched back to the mid-1940s), after the rise to power of Ho Chi Minh and his communist Viet Minh party in North Vietnam, and continued against the backdrop of an intense Cold War between two global superpowers: the United States and the Soviet Union. More than 3 million people (including 58,000 Americans) were killed in the Vietnam War; more than half were Vietnamese civilians. By 1969, at the peak of U.S. involvement in the war, more than 500,000 U.S. military personnel were involved in the Vietnam conflict. Growing opposition to the war in the United States led to bitter divisions among Americans, both before and after President Richard Nixon ordered the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 1973. In 1975, communist forces seized control of Saigon, ending the Vietnam War, and the country was unified as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam the following year.

Sources: http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War#Exit_of_the_French.2C_1950.E2.80.931954

Memoir Reflection

     The memoir is in first person the whole time and it has the narrator reflecting on his/her trip to Six Flags Great America with his family. It doesn’t contain dialogue, but it is filled with what the narrator is thinking, like how hot it is and what he thinks of the Superman ride. The narrator describes the icy feeling of the water compared to the oven like temperature. He/she will never forget the fun and how glad he was to go to the amusement park. I chose this memoir because it was written by someone from Illinois, and I love going to Six Flags with my family, too. I can put myself in the narrator’s shoes, waiting in a long line on a blistering hot day, praying the line will move quickly, waiting in anticipation for the thrill roller coasters have. He doesn’t go in depth with other characters because the memoir is more of a single person memoir, it is about an event that is focused on the narrator and he is so anxious to ride the coasters that he can block the rest of the characters out. Obviously the family is still there, but they aren’t important to the retelling of the story.

Snowflake Battle

Freezing cold
Presents sold
Full of joy
Christmas (or Chanukah) toys
Full of cheer
Grab a beer
Or some egg nog
When you wake up there’s morning fog
Go shopping and the stores are mobbed
The parents feel they were robbed
All these stupid sales
Especially the one at Zale's
The kids giddy about their new gifts
And the ones that are mad because they got stiffed
Christmas joy fills the air
While all the little girls braid their doll's hair
Snowflakes begin to trickle down
Falling and falling leaving big mounds
Every snowflake individual in its own way
Happy holidays

Class Direction

     I really like this English class. Last year I had Mr. Locks and I dreaded going to English, especially because I didn't really know anyone in the class. This year I knew most of the kids before the school year started. I wish we had more group work, though. I work better in a group then independently. I really want to have more hands on activities because I like to move around when I work. I don't like Independent Reading Thursdays because I absolutely hate reading books. If there was any way to cut out reading in English classes I would hope that everyone jumped on board. However, I like coming to this class because of the big discussions that we have about the readings even if I'm behind on my reading I become intrigued and want to participate.

J. D. Salinger

     In a recent interview Mr. Salinger is acting like a smart ass. When the interviewer asks him about Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye JD responds by saying, "Well, as cornfields go, it’s one of the best in the area. Old man Houlton has some kind of secret irrigation set-up down there and he’s pretty protective of it. You go down to Houlton’s cornfield and snoop around and he’ll soon as blow your head right off with his shotgun." He won't answer any direct question that pertains to his life.
     In the 1950’s the public loved to hate Catcher in the Rye, because of its gratuitous language in that it used the words fuck and talked a lot about sex. It has been on the banned books lists frequently in the past couple of years due to people challenging that the children today shouldn’t be exposed to the vulgar included in the book.
     The Cather in the Rye has been used in television shows from Simpsons to Saved by the Bell and back to Family Guy. This book has also been suspected to be the cause of multiple shootings including the death of John Lennon. Catcher in the Rye has also influenced multiple movies, songs, and video games.

Holden

     Holden is a sixteen-year-old boy who is being expelled from a school called Pencey Prep due to his bad grades. Other than the three people he puts on a pedestal, Allie Phoebe and Jane, he can only find the worse in people. Holden hates phonies; it's ironic because Holden himself is a phony. The main reason Holden is so very cynical and jaded toward everyone is because he is embarrassed by his weaknesses, his phoniness meanness and superficiality.

     Holden puts Jane, Allie, and Phoebe on the pedestal because he finds them to be innocent. Allie is a very smart boy and never lets him get bored, Allie wrote poems in his mitt during baseball games to stay interested, and since Allie died at a young age he never had the chance to get off of the pedestal. Jane is Holden’s crush, which means she can’t do anything wrong in his eyes. And Phoebe is on the pedestal because she is just like Allie except smarter and a much better writer. Holden considers himself to be the dummy of the family because he puts Phoebe and Allie on a pedestal, and his older brother, D. B., is a published author.

     Holden has had a rough life and he makes it worse every day.