How many things do they have to carry?

            When Wes told us that he didn't even know his comrades names, he felt bad that he couldn't meet up with them after the war or go to the memorial on Washington D.C. to touch their names. This means that whatever nickname you were given during the war, that what you became. I think that the characters in TTTC are more connected to each other by knowing each others names but they are still at the same level as Wes in the war.
            Tim O'Brien, intermixing non-fiction and fiction together to make a partly true war story works quite well. For one, It helps if you write about things you have had experiences about its easier to write about instead of a completely fiction story and you pull from your head about experiences you've never had. Also, it adds to the story it makes the story progress smoothly instead of just talking about random things that your remembering as you write about it. The story would be terribly fragmented and filled with random thoughts your remembering in the moment. Third, it makes the story would start to get stale and it would be much of the same thing, he would just have repeated experiences and it would just start to get boring. This way when he intermixes it, he can add a little spice to it. BAM! Lastly, I think it is very hard to remember back then and hes not quite sure what his mind has made up on its own and hes remembering memories hes never had. Sometimes the mind makes things up in place of things that were traumatic or things that you thought actually happened or that your mind wants to believe happened. It may be hard to get the real memories on paper because the fake ones may be more predominate than the real ones, the real ones might be more fuzzy.

QUESTIONS: 1:Why do you think the soldiers accepted Mary to be part of their group?
                        2:What things in the book do you think are made up?
                        3: What things do you think are true?

The Things They Carried

In the book "The Things they Carried" by Tim O'Brien, it talks about the literal things they carried and all the weight those items have. But the mental things they carry have infinitely more weight than the physical things they carry with them. These mental things include memories from back home, mistakes they have made from earlier in the war, and even girlfriends from back home. Sometimes these mental things were used to distract themselves from the war so they could mindlessly drone on and be in their own little world.

An important character in this book is Lt. Cross. He is very important because he is the Platoon leader and he is even distracting himself from protecting his troops from thinking about his girlfriend back home. While he was thinking about his girlfriend back home he actually got Tim Lavender, one of his troops, shot in the head. From then on he decided to stop thinking about the past and back home by only focusing on his troops and decided not to be loved buy his troops but just to be safe. What I think will happen to Lt. Cross later in the book is that he will soon not be able to completely get rid of his girlfriend from his mind and it will cost him either his life or on of his platoon members life, and the memories will haunt him forever because it could of been prevented if he was paying attention.

"Anticipating" The Great Gatsby

             Since I have read the Great Gatsby last year I'm am not really anticipating reading it again. Pretty much this rich guy *Spoiler Alert*  wants this woman and she is his dream, so every night he watches a green light at the end of her dock. The green light symbolizes his dream and how he is always wanted to reach his goal. But when he finally get the girl of his dreams he realizes that now he has nothing to work for; nothing he really wants so he has to let his dream go (I think but my memory is a little fuzzy). And there you go I pretty much spoiled the whole book for you.*End Spoiler Alert*
             So, the thing that intrigued me the most about the stuff we studied was how the start of the Prohibition led to the very quick increased of organized crime and underground bars. I mean how did the government not see what was going on around the country, right under their nose? Maybe they really didn't care to enforce the laws or they were really oblivious. But I digress, so thats what I found most interesting when we studied this era, and i'm curious about what others find interesting.

Mid Whinter Bhreak.

What i am doing this break is probably not terribly exciting. I will just be doing homework and catching back up in school because  I have been slacking lately and need to grab my grades back. Also I will just be playing video games and hanging out with friends and probably procrastinate on most of my school work. For Christmas most of my family is going to get together at my grandparents house and eat dinner chat and open presents. i have a feeling its going to be a good Christmas. For New Years, I am not doing anything except hang out and do really dumb challenges like we always do, like the Cinnamon challenge, Saltine challenge, and a whole bunch of other ones to test ourselves. Have Happy Holidays and a good New Year!

A Virginal, 

Boy and egg,

The Star,

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time,

Unholy Sonnet 1,

 I liked the Boy and egg because it shows that this boy is attached to this egg and he wouldn't give the egg up for anything.

The poem I disliked was The Star because it was just the twinkle twinkle little star song that everybody knows that isn't necessarily a poem its just a kids song that everyone knows.

 

Boy and Egg by Naomi Shihab Nye

I chose this poem because it shows that a boy shows attachment to one item that seems to have no value to someone else. Also, it shows that he doesn't do what others are doing playing ball or just hanging out with other people. He is not the popular guy but he is cool in his own way. This poem shows transandentalism also because the boy is doing his own thing instead of playing with the other kids and going his own way through life. I don't really know why but this poem really spoke to me.

Extra Credit: Video or Photo Post

                                           How this reminds me of the Crucible is how the fear of one thing can cause people to start to turn against each other. If nobody knew Lucifer "existed" then everybody wouldn't be making ridiculous accusations on each other about "making a deal with the Devil" and "Witchcraft". Although if we didn't have the Bible we wouldn't have Law and Order that we have today. So, if Lucifer didn't exist then we wouldn't have fear to be good people or else burn forever in hell.