My Expectations for High School

Most people have goals on their high school years. I've got several of them too, and I'd like to reach every single goal so I can move on to a better college and get a better job. Like many other people, I would like to get the best grades that I could ever get. Straight A's for every single classes is my goal, and I'm doing pretty good on it right now. I don't really mind much about WASL, but I mind about SAT and SAT II later on on my high school years. So I decided to get the highest score I can get on SAT and SAT II. I would expect myself to learn as much as possible during high school and be prepared for college.
Grades and such things aren't the only ones that are important. I could also be good at sports, such as soccer. My another goal for high school is to get in the varsity high school soccer team. Soccer is pretty much the only sport that I really like and know how to play at the same time. Also, I would like to be a better artist. I'm trying to major design, fine art, illustration or such things that is related to art in college. In order to do that, I must be a better artist, and come out with better pieces of work. When I accomplish all my goals, which I'm guessing I probably am able to, I couldn't be any happier for awhile, and I really do hope that I could reach my goals.

Poetry Out Loud

We're doing the Poetry Out Loud competition in our English class. It is a competition between students memorizing and reciting their poems. I chose a poem called The Star by Ann Taylor. Probably more than half of the people in the world, rather they are in countries that speak English or not, knows the song, that goes: Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are.... This song is based on the poem that I'm reciting for the competition. It is also one of the reasons why I chose the poem. The poem is made to a song, the rhymes and rhythms were catchy, and they were pretty easy to memorize. Other than that, I liked the warm, peaceful mood of the poem too.
The poem didn't really have special connections to me. However, while I was memorizing, and getting ready for the competition, I figured out that this poem could be a good metaphor of me or my life. This poem could be like a thankful letter that I would write to someone that helped me a lot throughout my life, like my parents, friends, relatives, teachers and others. The traveller could be me, and the star could be like those people. I was a bit amazed that this poem could actually connect to me in such ways. The Star was a thoughtful and meaningful poem and I suppose that this is one of the biggest reasons why I really made my mind and decided to do this poem.

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

We started a poem unit on our English class. One of the three poems that we have read was called The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. The poem is about whether if you are going to take a path that is rough, hard, challenging and not taken by much people but would give you a good lesson, or a path that is safe, not challenging, and taken by many people, but would not give you any new good lessons.

"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two
roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled
by,
And
that has made all the difference."

Taking the road not taken by many people would be a hard and challenging choice but if it would make a huge difference in my life(in a good way), I would surely take the harder path.

This poem is quite critical to the situation that I am in right now. I am a highschool student and this is one of the most important part of my life. I have to make a right choice so I could brighten my future. If I take a pathway that everyone else had taken, my future could be possibly safe, but would be sort of boring. However, if I take a pathway that is challenging, I cannot be hundred percent positive of my future, but could be an exciting adventure. Although I still did not choose what kind of path I'm going to take, this poem seems to me that it is talking about what path I should take.

To Kill a Mockingbird Movie

We've been watching To Kill a Mockingbird movie for few days now. Things are pretty much similar to what I have imagined. Especially the part where Jem and Scout was coming back from Scout's play was almost as same as I had expected. I imagined the scene where everything is dark with trees all around them. However, the costume of Scout was a bit different that I thought. I expected to see a roll of bacon, even though her costume was a ham, I thought it would look like that. The ham costume that Scout wore in the movie looked a bit like a glass bottle. Plus, there was a big hole on the costume so she could actually see what is going on, while I thought the hole was quite small. Still, everything else was so similar to the scene that I imagined. Even the action of Bob Ewell attacking Jem and Scout was similar too. Bob Ewell was over the two kids and threw Jem and Scout, trying to beat them down.
Since the movie was made a long time ago, the screen was grayscaled. However, I thought the settings, such as the house, the clothes people wore, the cars were perfect. I guess the makers of the movie could take advantage of grayscale since the quality is a little bit low, maybe people couldn't see some errors. Anyhow, the actors were great. I thought the actings in the old movies were all funny, but this movie was not. The actors were mostly acting natural, just like the movies these days. To Kill a Mockingbird is probably one of the best old movies that has the feelings of modern movies. I wonder how would the movie look like if they remake this movie again these days.

This book changed my life..

I've read so many books but I have never read any book that had so many great lessons like this one. Maybe it was because we went over the story and found out what is going on and what we can learn from the book in class. However, To Kill a Mockingbird sure was a book that taught me some good lessons. There are several lessons I can remember right now. One of them is: you've got to do your job properly and be responsible for what you do. Atticus is a great example of a person who is responsible and does his job well. Atticus, as a lawyer, he tried his best to defend Tom Robinson against the racist white juries, and did a great job, even though the jury convicted him guilty due to his race.

" "...Cal, what's all this?" He was staring at his breakfast plate. Calpurnia said, "Tom Robinson's daddy sent you along this chicken this morning. I fixed it." ... The kitchen table was loaded with enough food to bury the family: hunks of salt pork, tomatoes, beans, even scuppernongs. Atticus grinned when he found a jar of pickled pigs' knuckles." (pg. 213)

This was when people from African - American community sent Atticus copious amount of food after the trial of Tom Robinson. The African - Americans was quite thankful to Atticus for doing his best to defend Tom Robinson. From here, you can learn that if you do your job and try your best on whatever you are doing, you will earn something someday and the effort that you put in will always return to you. I've been trying my best in classes and putting my effort on the assignments and other things that we do in class. As a result, I've been getting satisfying grades. Therefore, one of the most important lessons that I've learned from the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, was that I have to do my job, be responsible for what I do, and put all my effort on to whatever I do.

Life Lessons

Through chapters 22 to 28, Jem and Scout learns several lessons from the adults near them. One of things that Jem learned was that there are still many white people who cheats or treats African - Americans cruelly, and those people are pure trash.

""...As you grow older, you'll see whit men cheat black men every day of your
life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it- whenever a white
man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a
family he comes from, that white man is trash."" (pg. 220)

This is a part where Atticus Finch tells his son, Jem about how wrong it is for a white men to treat African - American unfairly. Jem learns that no men, whether they were rich, or came from a fine family or not, shall ever treat an African - American unfairly.

Racism is still existing in this world that we live in. Even though it is not as severe as back in the time where white men had more rights than African - Americans, racism still exists. I believe this is one of the most important lessons to learn because no one has any rights to offend anybody by their races. No one shall be made fun of or offended just by their races-- the way they were born. I think people should keep this lesson in their mind and get rid of racism as quick as possible.

Themes - Mockingbird motif..

There are several themes in the book To Kill a Mockingbird. Mockingbird motif is one of the main themes that we could easily find from the book. This short phrase, "killing a mockingbird," has a serious meaning behind it. Mockingbird would be an innocent person, or a victim, who has not done anything wrong, but people dislike them and avoid them for no good reasons. There are few people representing the "mockingbirds" in this novel. Dill, friend of Jem and Scout, Tom Robinson, a person accused of raping a girl, and Arthur (Boo) Radley, which I'm going to talk about first. Boo Radley never did anything wrong, and he was even interested in Jem, Scout and Dill, and wanted to associate with them. However, people in Maycomb thought him as a malevolent person who never wanted to go outside. Another example:
" "Your father's right," she said. "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but
make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in
corncirbs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why
it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." " (pg. 90)

In the book, Tom Robinson, an innocent African-American man who was accused of raping a girl named Mayella Ewell, could also be Tom Robinson. This can also be the matter of prejudice, justice versus injustice, stereotype, loss of innocence. Anyway, Tom Robinson is an innocent victim, and it seems that the Ewells are trying To Kill (accuse) a Mockingbird (Tom Robinson).

Atticus as a father

Atticus is a father of Jem and Scout. As a father of two kids, he is a generous, easy, kind, and thoughtful man, but quite strict on certain categories. He is generous and easy enough to let little Scout use cursing words. Scout even asks Atticus what some of the words that are inappropriate for little kids to know, and Atticus explains those words to Scout in a wise way so it doesn't effect Scout in any bad ways. For example,

" "What's rape?" I asked him that night... He sighed, and said rape was carnal knowledge of a female by force and without consent." " (page 135)

Atticus indirectly explained the meaning of word, "rape" to Scout, without using any words that kids shouldn't hear. I believe Atticus is a person who values a person's reputation, and trying to teach Jem and Scout to respect other people and their privacy, and be responsible.

Atticus is a bit similar to my mother, but bit different than my father. Since Atticus is a father, I will compare him with my father. Atticus is, again, a generous and easy-going father. However, my father is not- he's quite strict with things that I do. Atticus is very strict on injuring other's reputations or such things like that, but I believe my father is a little bit easy-going on that part. He lets me criticize some people that have done something wrong. Of course, he doesn't let me criticize people who are innocent. Plus, both of the fathers values the responsibilities. My father tells me that I've got to do something I was told to do, unless there is a critical excuse.

Changing perceptions of Boo Radley

Boo Radley was known as a creep, who never wanted to come out of his house. However, starting from chapter 4 to 8, there were a lot of clues that changed our perceptions of Boo Radley.

"I pulled out two small images carved in soap. One was the figure of a boy, the other wore a crude dress... They were almost perfect miniatures of two children. They boy had on shorts, and a shock of soapy hair fell to his eyebrows. I looked up at Jem. A point of straight brown hair kicked downwards from his part. I had never noticed it before.

Jem looked from the girl-doll to me. The girl-doll wore bangs. So did I.

"These are us," he said." (pp. 59-60)

This is a part when Jem and Scout found two miniatures of themselves in an oak tree. In the tree, there had been a box of chewing gum, and all sorts of things for Jem and Scout. Also, when Jem was going to Radley's lot to get his pants back, his pants were sewed just like how he'd sew. I believe that Boo Radley had been watching them, Jem, Scout and Dill, and he was interested in them. How would anybody know what Jem was wearing, and what Scout was wearing? Plus, the carved figures were carved in soap. That could also mean that the person who carved those things couldn't use wooden blocks- which means they couldn't go outside. So these things made me think that Boo Radley is actually not the creep that everybody thought of, but is a person who is interested in Jem and Scout, and wants to go outside, and maybe be with them.

Scout once talked to Miss Maudie about Boo Radley. She never talks anything bad about any person(at least she seems like), and she told Scout that Arthur Radley, better known as Boo Radley. She told Scout that the old Mr. Radley was a foot-washing Baptist, which means he was extremely religious. That could possibly mean that Boo Radley is also very religious. Also, when Jem, Scout, and Dill were acting like the Radleys', Atticus told the kids that he hopes the play is not about the Radleys. The reaction of Atticus weren't any special, I thought. He didn't act any differently, so just by his reaction, Boo Radley's thought of as an old creepy Boo Radley.

My first impression of Boo (Arthur) Radley

Our English class started to read a famous novel, "To Kill A Mockingbird" not to long ago. Arthur Radley, known better as Boo Radley, is a neighbor of the main character, Scout, who barely ever leaves his house. When I read about Boo Radley I first thought, 'this guy is mysterious and I would love to know more about him, his background, and other things. Why would he not go outside? Are the rumors true? If not, what really happened? Why are the people making those kinds of rumors?' Most likely, I was very curious about this character. As I kept on reading, I figured out that there were rumors about Boo Radley. I don't think those are partially made up and partially true. What Boo Radley has done when he was young, such as drinking and not going to church, could be true. However, some stories, such as,

"Boo wasn't crazy, he wa high-strung at times... he was not a criminal. The sheriff hadn't the heart to put him in jail alongside Negroes, so Boo was locked in the courthouse basement." (pg. 11)

could be inflated for some reasons. First, to scare little kids, people might've inflated the story, and second, just like those rumors going around, the stories might've changed.

The part where Jem, Scout was telling Dill about the Radley's and related stories was pretty interesting too. Especially, Dill was agog as Jem and Scout were telling him about the Radley's and their house. It seemed like Dill was aspiring to go into their house and find out more about them- even though he didn't, as Jem and Scout told him that the Radley's would kill him. My reaction would be almost as same as Dill's reaction. When I find out about something very interesting, I would like to find more and more about it, although I would stop at the point where it seems dangerous.

The best thing about English so far/something we've done in English that I enjoyed..

Creating an English blog was so far the best thing that I’ve ever done during this year of English class. I’ve been learning English for several years but I have never tried creating an English blog. I think this is a new interesting way to learn English and I am really glad to do this. It seems that we are going to keep posting often and get them graded. I just hope I can learn how to use blogs better and be comfortable with it. Again, making an English blog and posting is a totally new way of learning English, and I’m sure that I’m going to enjoy this and learn well.