26. Thanksgiving break memoirs

Well I actually had a pretty sucky Thanksgiving break this weekend. So I really did not have a chance to grow emotionally. On Thursday, we had family come over to our house to eat lunch. It was fun, sure, but no emotional growth for sure. Then Friday I woke up early to go shopping for Black Friday. It was fun too, we went a few stores and got a few things but again, nothing really that great that would make me grow emotionally. I got a bunch of clothes and a few DVD's but nothing monumental. Then, Saturday, I did not really do much. I did not eat that much on Thanksgiving because a lot of the stuff that was made had some meat in it or was made with chicken broth. So I was not like, dragging all weekend like some people were. Also the leftovers were not that great really. At around six-ish, my mom, my sister, my sister's friend, my sister's friends' mom, my sister's friend's sister, my aunt, my two cousins and I (wow that was a mouthful) (or in this case a handful) went to see that 3-D version of A Christmas Carol. I think that if I did happen to create a part of a memoir all weekend, that it had to have been because of the movie. It was just horrible. Really, it was super lame. The emotional growth I underwent was pretty much just growing in the fact that I will never see that movie or recommend it ever again. Then on Sunday, we woke up early, went to church, then we went to the mall. We shopped for a little bit but did not find much, so we ate lunch at the foodcourt. Subway to be specific. Then we shopped a little more and I ended up getting a shirt and jacket from Zumiez and then we went home. That was the end of my weekend, and I was all out of chances to have emotional growth. Oh well, maybe next weekend.

25. Reviews of Literaty Criticisms

Alright, before I get started on the commentation of the two literary reviews of The Red Badge of Courage, I think it is best I give my own. Personally, I did not like the book at all. There is no way anyone could get me to read this book on my own. Now since I had to read it for school, I did not really have a choice and just had to bear with it. But come on, it was a slow moving, basically a documentary, story about war. I know for some people war might be a very interesting thing for them to read about, but most certainly it is not interesting to me in the slightest. While I support soldiers for what they do for our country, yadda, yadda, I would really rather not read about it.
Okay, so, the two literary criticisms that Mr. Langley gave our class to read about The Red Badge of Courage were extremely lengthy and hard to concentrate on. However, while they were hard to read, when you finally did concentrate hard enough to read the information in them, they actually had some good, useful information. My favorite part from either of the reviews was this:"Surprisingly little has been made of the fact that Henry's "wound," the red badge of "courage" which marks the turning point in his character development, comes neither from the enemy nor even from a random unidentifiable bullet: it comes from one of his own men, a soldier fleeing wildly, as Henry did, and who perceives Henry as merely another opposing force, another competitor. In this pivotal moment, Henry is attempting to communicate; however, he cannot see that his attempt has only one meaning in the lexicon of men each battling for his own survival: he is a threat to the soldier. And as a consequence, Henry receives the one response which makes sense: the man floors him with a single, vicious blow from his rifle-used, by a man in his most primitively competitive frame of mind, as a club."
I like this because I agree with it alot. Before Henry got what I would consider a wake up call, when the man hit him in the head with the butt of his rifle, he was not serious about the war. It seemed like after this happened is when things started getting better, like the bit from the review points out.

24. Red Badge of Courage chapters 9-20

I do not think that these several chapters were a reflective of realism and the first set were. In chapters nine through twenty, Henry went to war several more times. The difference was that now, Henry was not running away like he did before, he instead was being very brave and fighting hard the whole time. Henry could now be considered a hero in a sense, since he was fighting and being courageous instead of fleeing and being a coward. At one point, he was so into the battle that he was shooting and reloading over and over agian so fast that he did not realize when the battle was over and the enemy was gone, and he just kept shooting until he heard another soldier laughing at him. This was a very important moment for many reasons. First of all, the kind of bravery that Henry's actions showed here made his officers take notice of him and see that maybe Henry is capable of more and better things than anyone had originally thought. The fact that the people who were in charge of Henry and who he looked up to thought highly of Henry now gave him a sense of pride and job well done, and boosted his confidence many times over. He felt like an entirely new soldier, tenfold better than before. While this was a very encouraging moment for Henry, another moment later on was not as reassuring. Henry overheard a general ask an officer if he could spare a unit, and the officer reliped saying that if he had to spare a unit it would have to be the 304th, because they fight very poorly. This would not be so bad if the 304th unit was any other unit, but it happened to be the one Henry was in. When he heard this, Henry was very upset and offended to say the least. Later on, while walking, a soldier walking with Henry and Wilson falls and drops the flag. Henry standing next to him picked up the flag and kept walking with it.

23. Red Badge of Courage chapters 1-8

Last night I was reading chapters one through eight in our newest book, The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane. I knew that this was a war book, and honestly, I hate war books. I hate history all together and anything to do with it. This made it very difficult to give this book a chance. But I knew I had to read it so I just sat down and read it. I am not going to say something like this book surprised me and I actually loved it! Because I did not. It was pretty boring to me but I read it anyways. What I got out of it was that Henry went to war against his mom's hopes and told her he would not do anything she would be ashamed of. While he was there, before he actually started fighting, he started freaking out thinking he would run from the war when the moment came. He started feeling very self conscious for thinking like this, so he asked someone else if they would ever run from the war. The other soldier basically said that he would do whatever the rest of the soldiers did, whether they ran or stayed to fight, he would do what they did. This made Henry feel a little bit better about his feelings. He asked another person when he started feeling self conscious again, but this time the other person said that he would not run, he would stay and fight. This made Henry feel really bad. One day, the war began, and in the heat of the moment Henry did not run. He went with the other soldiers and fought. The most of them survived when it was over and they were all very excited. As they got back from fighting, they heard that they had to fight again. This time, Henry was scared so he ran. As he ran past a person of importance up on his horse he overheard the man say that the enemy was being held back. Now Henry was relieved, yet ashamed that he ran. He walked past this gnarly man missing body parts and bleeding. When that man asked Henry where he was injured, Henry felt horrible because he was a coward and ran away.

22. Veterans Day Field Trip

On Friday, November 13th, our entire school went on a field trip to several different places. I almost missed it, because my mom scheduled me to get the flu shot in the early afternoon, and there was no way for me to leave the field trip early then come back, so I was just going to have to miss the entire day. I definitely did not want to do that because I would have had to do a huge packet to make up for it. Luckily I convinced my mother to reschedule and I did not have to miss the field trip. And I am really glad I did not miss it. In the morning we got on several buses by A1 classes (I like my A1 class so I got lucky and had a fun bus ride all day). Now, I do not know the names of all the places so bear with me. The first place we went was this place with a few helicopters and tanks out front. Before we got to see these we went inside and took a tour of the inside of this castle-like building that was like a mini museum on the inside, then after that we got to see the stuff outside. After that we went to all the monuments. There we got to look at all the different memorials from all the different wars. This was probably my favorite spot of the day, even though we had to answer questions in a packet. We got to do a crayon rubbing of a soldiers name and that was cool. Then we went to another place but the only thing I remember from there was a giant who knows what and going to a firehouse. After that we went to lunch, I went to Subway. Yummy. Then we all got back on the bus and went to Camp Butler. There we got a flower and a card to fill out. We picked out a veteran tombstone and put the flower on it, then wrote down a few pieces of information about that veteran. When we got back to school we had about 10 minutes left due to a half hour bus ride that should have taken 15 minutes but we were stuck behind a tractor thing the entire way. All in all it was a cool field trip.

21. A dream I've had that seemed real

If I am ever asked about a dream I always go back to the same dream. I had it when I was about four or five years old. I am not sure why I remember it so vividly or why it had stuck in my memory for so very long, but it has. All I remember after the dream was waking up scared. To start it off, I went to bed and went to sleep. At some point during the night I fell into a dream that I would remember for the next eleven or so years, probably more. This may be a little hard to follow, but bear with me. So, I was a little kid (the age I was at the time of the dream) and all I knew was that my aunt was after me. I was the little pig, she was the big bad wolf. Her son, my younger cousin, was also a big bad wolf, but on a smaller scale. Either way I was running from them, trying to escape any way I could. It started off just running. Then, I was in my preschool running. I ran into a familiar room and tried hiding in a fold up cabinet. It seemed that as soon as the big bad wolves entered the room, I suddenly appeared in my aunt's (yes the same aunt that was chasing me) house. I was at the front door and frantic. So I ran into the kitchen and thought it would be smart to hid under their kitchen table. Well, the table was tall, had very thin legs, and had no table cloth. I am not sure why I thought it would be a good idea to hide there, since they could very easily see me, but I did. As soon they walked through the front door, I was panicking again, but I remained quiet. I could see from my place under the table that they were walking towards me. I heard by cousin say, "mom, she's in here". The last thing I remember seeing was big furry legs bending down slowing, and then a horrid wolf face grinning evilly saying, "Ive got you now"

20. My Favorite Tall Tale

My favorite tall tale out of all the ones I have ever heard has got to be Brier Rabbit and the Tar Baby. I am not sure why I like it so much, it may be because it was the only tall tale that I ever heard that was not about some macho guy? I do not know. But either way, Brier Rabbit and the Tar Baby was the best! In case you do not know what it is about, basically it is this rabbit, and he is hanging out in the forest or wherever rabbits chill out at. All of a sudden this fox sees the rabbit and decided he wanted to eat the rabbit. So, the fox got this ingenius idea to make a baby out of tar to capture the rabbit. (Why a rabbit would be attracted to a baby figure I have no idea) but, it worked, and the rabbit got stuck to this baby shaped mound of tar. Then when the fox took it back to his cave or whatever, he took the rabbit and was deciding how to go about eating him. The rabbit said something like, "Do whatever you want to me, just please do not throw me into the briers." Or something along those lines. And the rabbit just kept pleading with the fox not to throw him in the brier patch. Think about this, if you have complete control over someone and they ask you NOT to do something, what do you usually want to do? Whatever they are asking you not to do right? Of course. So, needless to say, the fox was like, "Oh, the rabbit does not want me to throw him in the briers, so naturally I will!" And when he did, the rabbit escaped because lo and behold, that where he was born and raised...in the briers. So I am not sure what the moral of this story is, but I know that if I am ever in the hands of a fox waiting to eat me, I will most definately plead for him to not throw me in the briers because hey, a few pokes here and there is better than being eaten right??

19. Vengeance

Vengeance: infliction of injury, harm, humiliation, or the like, on a person by another who has been harmed by that person; violent revenge; the desire for revenge; curse; imprecation. Basically...vengeance is when someone does something bad to you, so you get mad and try to get back at them. I do not know about you, but I love revenge. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is an old saying and I agree with it. If someone does something to you that is not right, justice has its place. I know there is a saying that if someone wrongs you that you should turn the other cheek, and offer the other to be hurt as well. This to me does not make sense? Karma is sort of like the earth's justice I guess you could say. I do not believe in karma per say, because, really, how can the earth know when someone does something bad then get them back for it? It can't... So, I think that most of the time if vengeance was not saught, yet occured, chances are it was either caused by any given action of the person or just a coincidence. Say someone stole ten dollars from me but I did not know who it was. Two days later they get pulled over for speeding and get a ticket. Was that karma? No, that was a result of their choice to speed. Vengeance is like taking the idea of karma, and using it yourself. Now say that same person stole that same ten dollars and I knew who it was... I would most definately get back at them. Chances are, it would be much more clever than stealing ten dollars. I know whenever my sister ever does anything to me and I get revenge, it is always HILARIOUS because I am great at it and it usually involves emberassing her. But I am not a mean sister, just a fair one who thinks revenge is great!

18. My Biggest Fear

I am not sure if I have one big fear in particular, in fact, I am usually pretty brave about stuff and will not let anything get to me, ask my friends. But if I had to narrow it down, my top two would be heights and public speaking. Heights is probably the worst for me. I did not used to be afraid of heights?...until September 11. I am not sure why that made me leery of heights, but I am pretty sure it is because it was in airplanes, up in the air, etc. I guess it could be combined with planes, because ever since then, it has been quite the challenge getting me onto a plane. Let me tell you, I am a mess the entire time we are in the air. I absoultely HATE it! But like I said, it is not just plane heigth, it is being on anything higher than about 10 feet. On our eigth grade feild trip to Chicago, our class went to the top of the Sears Tower, and we all had to go. Oh my gosh, it was horrible. I did not walk around, I basically stood by the elevator the entire time. Public speaking on the other hand, is not really a fear I get to avoid as easily. If it is something like a 10 second thing is history or whatever then it is no big deal.. But speeches? No way. Hate em. This fear is probably more common than the heights one, and more self explanitory, so I will let it speak for itself. What I do not understand, is why the most common fear, is of dying. I know religious people will say they are not afraid of dying because they go to a better place, but what about nonreligious people? Even then death should not really be that frightening? I mean, it is inevitable? The only sure thing in life is death. So why is it such a big deal? We live, we die. I do not see anything in that to be afraid of. If anything, life is more frightening than death! I just don't get it. But hey, that's just me.