small (political) Rant

Ok I am so sorry but my mom emailed me this link and when I read it I got pretty upset. The story is about killing abortion survivors. That means babies that survive the initial abortion attempt. It has to do with Obama's views on the subject which are in favor of killing babies that survive abortion. It really breaks my heart more than anything. I heard someone talk about abortion in a segment about how Every Living Person Should Be Pro-Life. I have to say I agree with that I mean just think, what if your mom had had an abortion? Anyway here's the link...
http://townhall.com/columnists/DougGiles/2008/09/20/if_it_was_up_to_obama,_this_woman_would_be_dead?page=full&comments=true
I'm going to do Calculus...

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Ok. The character of Sir Gawain. He is a knight which means that he follows the code of chivalry. He has a high sense of honor and those kind of qualities. He is part of Arthur's court so that put him at legendary status. He can virtually do no wrong. But by the same token at the end the reason he got touched at all was because he kept the belt and didn't turn it over. He was only human and didn't want to die. The Green Knight was not totally evil or good. He would not have put Gawain in that position if he was totally good but he would have not have shown mercy if he was totally evil. I'm not sure what he symbolizes, I'm not to good at that stuff. I think green usually symbolizes envy or jealousy but I'm not sure how those fit into this piece. The New Year's meeting could be because that's usually a peaceful, celebratory season. Or it may have something to do with it being the start of a new year and starting over. I don't even know.

Beowulf

Beowulf was a lot harder to read but easier to understand (at least the big picture) than I thought. I think to make sure that this does not go to far off track I'm just going to go off the questions.
The first one has to do with the Christianity that was incorporated by the monk who wrote it down. There is a huge emphasis on deeds, the glory received from them, and the immortality that a warrior achieves by their deeds. Those are to a certain extent the pagan end of things. The monsters that Beowulf fights are also a pagan element. Christianity figures heavily in the narration. There is also a lot of Christianity incorporated into the dialogue. These tend to be more dominate just from sheer volume. The pagan elements are more subtle and don't scream that they're there at the top of their lungs. I do think it is interesting that Christianity was incorporated so heavily into the story. From what I've heard it seems like the monks who transcribed these stories did a really good job of leaving them alone. P-dise talked about that whole thing where they copied letter by letter.
I thought that the other part would be longer but I'll talk about something else since I don't know how long this is supposed to be. How about Anglo-Saxon hero traits? I would say that being brave was fairly important. The more brave and courageous deeds, the better off you are. A certain element of conceit also appears necessary from the standpoint that you are more likely to do some things if you have tendencies toward that. It would also seem fairly important to be able to hold your liquor since so much of Anglo-Saxon life centered around celebrations where alcohol was not just present but part of the celebration.
This is what I got out of the story. I'm sure I was wildly off topic but that's ok right? I am going to the boy's soccer game now.

Notice

Due to a number of received comments about the author's misspelling of the word "liberal" it is hereby corrected. "libral" -> "liberal" The author would also like to point out that this was a typo and not her deplorable spelling abilities that led to this unpleasantnesses. (Spellcheck puts the little red line under the first spelling.)

Distracted

I can really only do anything for a short amount of time before becoming distracted and that is my only excuse for posting this instead of finishing my Cat on a Hot Tin Roof paper. I needed a break to collect my thoughts and I want to save some of my new Runner's World for later so I got on the internet and decided I needed a laugh so I went on Newsbusters.org For those who don't know its a blog site dedicated to "exposing libral media bias". It generally makes fun of key media figures and the lengths to which they will go to defend the media darlings. While it is often somewhat right-wing extreme I generally find it good for a laugh. There are a number of 'regulars' who read and comment on stories and it cracks me up. These people all know each other and there will be posts from 2am. I do recommend it though (if you have a sense of humor and are not fanatical one way or another because it will probably cause a severe facial tic or worse if you are).
In other news I would like to report that Melissa English is recovering nicely from her ACL surgery last Mon. I have been over there a lot and as of today she is allowed to walk. By the way for those who don't know ginger is a good anti-inflammatory and tastes far better than advil especially in cookie form. (I have a very good recipe if anyone needs it.) I am going to finish my paper now! OK bye

Random

Hello all! Just another random post because it's kind of depressing to have only posts for AP on here. Anyway my brother's birthday was on Wed and he now has his permit and is officially street legal. Just a warning to everyone. Anyway I got my AP Chem and ACT scores back which is good because I was going crazy waiting. I did pretty good on both. Better than I thought on AP and not quite as good as I hoped on the ACT but not bad overall. I haven't really been doing anything exciting. Just going to weights and putting off doing my application essays. On the plus side I have gotten faster and stronger this summer even if I still can't jump. Oh well I have to go do something productive.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is by Tennessee Williams and its the play I read since I've already read Romeo and Juliet. Honestly I was surprised I liked it. That sounds weird but I decided I like Tennessee Williams. The play was in an anthology so I read a couple of others in it too since they were on the master list too. The story is really convoluted. Its about this couple who have come back to the husband's (Brick's) house because his rich father (Big Daddy) is dying of cancer and hasn't made a will yet. Brick and his wife Maggie are fighting over it with his brother Gooper and Mae. Brick and Maggie don't have any kids and the other two do. This is a sore spot because Brick won't sleep with Maggie. He started drinking after his friend Skipper died. There is a lot of conversation about Brick and Skipper's friendship. There are two different third acts. I liked parts of both. The original ends with the line "Wouldn't it be funny if that were true" which is used earlier and almost gives different meaning to both scenes. All in all it was certainly interesting. I'm sorry this is such a convoluted description. I hope you understand.

Schindler's List

Schindler's List has been, by far, my favorite book off my summer reading list. Thomas Keneally did an incredible amount of research about the life of Oskar Schindler. He specifically mentions that most of the details come from detailed accounts given by the Schindlerjuden or Schindler Jews whom he spoke with. The book was incredibly well written. It is hard to believe it is a true story because some of the events just seem impossible. The number of things that lined up just right time after time seem like they are pushing believability to far. Maybe thats why the story is so powerful, because it's so unbelievable it has to be true no one could make this up and have it all work out the way it does. We aren't programmed to write these kind of endings.

Jane Eyre

Yes, this post is actually relevant to the reason I even have a blog and am (sort of) keeping it up. I finished Jane Eyre. It only took me a couple of weeks. Actually I've had it done for a little while but my lazy summer days are in my rearview mirror and...Anyway Jane Eyre.
First let me say that I did like it. I thought it was a good book, well written, obviously it's a classic so I'm not saying anything anyone doesn't already know. I liked Jane herself for the most part. I didn't like the fact that characteristics I could relate to more were somewhat repressed when she got older. She was willful and somewhat impulsive and these things were not gone just always presented in a bad light. She reminded me in some parts of the book of the character Uriah Heep from David Copperfield who was very quiet and 'umble and had his own agenda. I realize that both the time the book was written and the time it was set were very different from now and that many things have changed. It was harder for me to related and sympathize with her while she was a governess then while she was a child or a teacher. I was glad it had a happy ending (sort of) but I was not expecting it.
Overall I liked it. As I was trying to explain to my aunt, I read books differently when I read them with the intent of writing a paper on them. I was looking for things for my paper not really just appreciating the book. But let me reiterate one more time I LIKED THE BOOK.

Random

This post has absolutely nothing to do with literature or the books I'm reading. I am bored to tears and felt the need to pretend I'm being productive. So instead of taking the opportunity of doing something truly productive such as start my In Cold Blood paper, research some scholarships, or even do yoga I have chosen to do this instead. Lest you all think that all I have done today is this, I would like to take the opportunity of noting that I went not only to church this morning but to Sunday School as well which starts an hour earlier. Once church was over I went and worked on acquiring skin cancer while watching my brother's soccer game, they beat Danville btw : ) After that I went home and cleaned out my car. I washed it too even though it looked like it was going to rain. With the amount of time I took and everything it should have just poured before I was done but it didn't and now it's gorgeous out again. Lousy weather. On a different note, my little sister's cat might be the most ridiculous pet we've ever owned. She is a long-ish haired calico and about 3 years old. Normally she pretends not to be able to stand anyone in the family and only deigns to let us pet her if we are clearly occupied with something else such as being on the computer or eating or something like that. This cold-shoulder, silent treatment changes however when the weather gets nice and she can see out the screen door. She becomes violently offended by the fact that our dogs, who we have an invisible fence for, are allowed to come and go as they please whenever they bark at the door. She will sit there at the door making a kind of strangled meowing that sounds almost like she's trying to bark. These noises in addition to her standing on her back feet and batting at the door handle which is only about 2 feet higher than she can reach make for quite the spectacle. We have all learned to open the door about 4 inches, scoot an arm out, open it enough to get head and upper torso out, feel around for the cat with our feet and once we've scooted her back from the door, make a kind of hop and slam the door quickly. Since the dogs have had a little trouble mastering this, when we let them in or out, we either scoot the cat out of the way, pick her up and pitch her in the general direction of the couch, or simply try to be as stealthy as possible opening the door. She inevitably slips out at some point and it falls to the person who let her out to chase her down before she gets to far from the house. The only reason we keep her inside is because of coyotes. Speaking as one who has been awakened at ungodly hours of the night in a panic unable to breathe because of a spiked weight sitting on my stomach, or had a shoe chewed (sometimes I swear she thinks she's a dog) because she got bored after going back in my closet convinced that something must have changed since I had removed her 30 secs. before, coyotes around here can't be that bad. (I'm just kidding people, don't get offended here) Oh well I've wasted enough time. Time to go do something I should.

first book

Well due to Schindler's List being checked out of the library when I went to get it and my other books from my list I had to change my plans a little. I ended up reading In Cold Blood first instead. I have seen some movies and read some books that I consider disturbing but this has to be the worst. It is absolutely nauseating. For those who don't know what it is about, and I can't honestly say I recommend reading it even though it is very well written, I'll give a short summary. It is about the mass murder of a family of four named Cuttler who lived in Kansas in the 1950s. They were killed by two men who had broken in with the intent of robbery and who had come prepared to eliminate witnesses. The book starts by talking about the family and it follows their last day alive. The rest of it follows their killers and the townspeople and police in the aftermath. Truman Capote goes inside the minds of the killers and it's a scary place. The book just doesn't feel like it can be a true story. It seems like something that has to be made up because you just can't comprehend that kind of thing happening in real life. It's a story from a horror movie not real life. I really can't even imagine what the victims must have gone through. The focus on the killers almost makes it worse. You hate them for what they did and their complete emotional detachment and lack of understanding of the magnitude of the crime. They were obviously mentally unbalanced but you end up pitying them even though you hate them. It is just so pathetic. I can't believe I really read this book. I just picked some books off of the list and I'm not lying I think that there are probably other books I would have liked better. Oh well now I just have to write my paper. Over what I have no idea...

First Post

Woo-hoo! I got my blog set up before school got out. I am just going to mention that I am reading Schindler's List first for my summer reading list. I think I might like blogging. What better thing could there be other than a random stream of conscience about a book you are reading? Prepare for random posts over the summer when I get bored. Caio.