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.

A Father's Love

In "The Road" the father would do anything for his son. Even though they are faced with adversary the father would do anything for his son, he reads his son a book, gives the boy the only Coke that is left in the store. When they get enough oil, the father leaves the light on, knowing that it will burn the oil supply and it will be harder the next time they need light, just because his son asked him to do so. The father would do anything in order to give his son a normal life, especially since the boy doesn't know anything other than this. He was born into the carnage, but the father wants to raise his son the same way he would have without the wreckage, as long as he is keeping his son safe.

I feel that today's fathers would do the same as the father in "The Road", but not to the full extent. The fathers today wouldn't give the entire Coke to their child, they would most likely blow out the flame to conserve the oil for a time when they really needed it, also they probably wouldn't read a book to their child just because there isn't enough time or today's fathers wouldn't think it's a necessity.

There Goes the Neighborhood

     When the Europeans first came to America they were intruding on land that belonged to the Native Americans. They took what wasn't theirs and called it their own. The Europeans were happy that they could do whatever they pleased especially when they were taking advantage of the Native Americans with unfair trades, such as learning how to find food in the forests the Europeans gave the Indians beads. Without this skill the Europeans would have never survived and all the Native Americans got were lousy beads, which the Europeans tricked them to thinking they were priceless. This happens today, people take advantage of the naive and unaware, they sold them fake merchendise, or they raised the prices on their merchendise to make even more money and they make it sound like they're getting a deal. When I was walking down the street last year I heard a man say, "I'll sell it to you for $20." He was selling a lady a bottle of water near the White Sox game. She bought it and I felt so bad because she had no idea that you can buy 20 bottles of water for that much. This is just like what the Europeans did to the Native Americans they took advantage of their lack of knowledge and exploited it for their own good.

Introductions

     My name is John Doyle; however almost everyone I know calls me Jack. I'm 15 years old and I am a sophomore at Whitney Young High School. For elementary school I went to a small school called Keller, it's on the far Southside of Chicago in Beverly, there was only one class per grade and we only had 28 kids in my graduating class. I play football and baseball for Whitney Young and I really like it. With sports and some tough classes the work load can be stressful, but I learned how to get through it by doing my work on the train to and from school. I love sports; I have played them since I was able to walk. My favorite sports teams would have to be the Bears, Blackhawks (not just because they won the Stanley Cup), Bulls, and the White Sox. I don’t really like to read, but I am going to try to find a style of book that best suits me because I know that we’re going to do a lot of reading this school year. My favorite subject is probably math because the answers are definite and my least favorite is English, because I don’t like to read or write. My favorite color is green, and my lucky number is 13.