Daily Journal #20

From the very opening of the poem “Autumn” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, it is obvious that it is a definite writing of the Romanticism time period. The “romantics” are known to write a lot about nature and be very descriptive in doing so. Seeing how this is a whole poem describing in a very poetic way.

The opening sentence, “Thou comest, Autumn, heralded by the rain, with banners, by great gales incessant fanned, brighter than brightest silks of Samarcand, and stately oxen harnessed to thy wain!” (Longfellow: Lines 1-4). The way that he talks about autumn makes it seem like autumn is a tangible thing; more of a human being or some kind of spirit rather than just a season.

Longfellow goes on to praise Autumn of how it answers the prayers of the farmers; “Thy steps are by the farmer’s prayers attended” (Longfellow: Line 11). This is also a characteristic of the Romanticism time period because they tended to show the “good” side of nature, the side that nourishes and protects the people and animals of the earth.

Longfellow also compares the sheaves of grain that the farmers have harvested to “flames upon the altar!” (Longfellow: Line 12). This shows how the authors, at least Henry Longfellow, in the Romanticism time period liked to raise up the virtues of hard work that the farmers of America show. The frequent use of the exclamation points shows that the author is very emotional about the subject. This excitedness about nature is a very token characteristic of the romanticism period.

The imagery that Longfellow uses in further personifying autumn in lines five through nine give the reader that Longfellow felt that he had a very close relationship with nature, and how he saw nature during autumn: “Thou standest, like imperial Charlemagne, upon thy bridge of gold; thy royal hand outstretched with benedictions o’er the land, blessing the farms through all thy vast domain! Thy shield is the red harvest moon.”

Also, the fact that the speaker of the poem is talking directly to nature makes the reader feel closer to nature because they are able to talk to it, not just talk about it.

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. The Complete Poetical Works, ed. by Horace E. Scudder. Boston and New 

York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1893; Bartleby.com, 2011.

Reflection: Pegasus in Pound & Twilight

The two poems that I picked for this reflection blog were “Twilight” and “Pegasus in Pound,” both of which were written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. They were both part of The Seaside and the Fireside. The reason why I picked “Pegasus in Pound” was because I have a liking to Greek mythology, and Pegasus was the famed winged horse made by Poseidon.

At first, “Pegasus in Pound” seems to be talking about an actual winged horse being found astray, chained up to be sold, and later breaking out in the middle of the night. But under closer inspection and by revelation to a deeper meaning, I have found such meaning. I personally believe that the Pegasus in this instance is referring to a poet’s poems and other works. In line 3 and 4, the author says “In the golden prime of morning, strayed the poet’s winged steed” (Longfellow 3-4). When looked at in pair with the later lines about how the Pegasus escaped, and all of the townspeople wondered where it went. It talks of how nobody gave the Pegasus bedding or any other things such as that, and when the Pegasus was gone, there was a spring that flowed forever after that which nourished and calmed the people. The last bit leaves me to think that Longfellow was talking about how most of the time, when poets (and the same could be said for most artists) are alive, they do not get that much attention, but their works they leave behind are enjoyed by the people of the future. It includes many Romanticism characteristics, from the title, to the descriptiveness about nature in the beginning, to the rooster Alectryon, who was also from Greek mythology.


Twilight is talking about how during a storm, a fisherman’s child watches the storm in interest because of how wild the storm is, and how the mother is pacing the house in worry because the same storm that interests the child makes the mother / wife worry about her husband, who is most likely out fishing during the storm. The very descriptive nature and talking of death is very much a characteristic of Romanticism writing style.


One thing that both of these poems both have in common is that they both deal with death. “Pegasus in pound” talks of how it seems that only when a great poet dies, even though his works were out there when he was still living, personified by a Pegasus, do his works become famous and only then do people realize how good and soothing they are, like a “fount unfailing” that “gladdens the whole region round” and “soothes them with its sound” (Longfellow Pegasus 66-70). The theme of death in “Twilight” is very obvious, both in the name, which is often associated with death and other “dark” things and how storms and fisherman usually do not do each other well.


In a short biography of Longfellow, I saw that Longfellow was named after his uncle, who was in the Navy and died on board the Intrepid, and I thought that it may be of some connection to "Twilight" because it is also about a man out at sea, possibly dead, like his uncle (Oaks 2). I also saw that Longfellow learned both Greek and Latin, which might have attributed to his liking of mythology exemplified in "Pegasus in Pound" (Oak 2)



Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. "Pegasus in Pound - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)." Books & Literature Classics. Web. 14 Dec. 2011.



Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. "Twilight - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)."Books &

Literature Classics. Web. 14 Dec. 2011.


Oakes, Elizabeth H. "Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth."American Writers, American Biographies. New York:

Facts On File, Inc., 2004.Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.

Reflection: Old Ironsides

The poem that I chose to analyze for this reflection blog was Oliver Wendell Holmes’ “Old Ironsides.” The reason that I chose this particular poem was because it was a very good example of the new writing style of the Romanticism period. It was also easy to comprehend and short, but even though it is short, it is all that is needed to get the point that Holmes was trying to make across.

First off, the poem “Old Ironsides” is about the Revolutionary War warship the USS Constitution. Even though it was not actually made out of iron, it got the name because “the cannonballs of its heyday tended to bounce off its hardwoods with little effect” (Huff 2). Huff also brings up a good point, which is that “the name for the title of this poem not only served as a reminder of the ship’s service record but also invested the ship with a personality” (Huff 2). This idea of personification is one of the characteristics of the Romanticism period. The poem calls for the ship to be set to sea for a burial rather than it being picked apart for its materials.

Even though this is a very short poem, it has many places where it shows that it is definitely a work of the Romanticism period. The first place is where Holmes says “Beneath it rung the battle shout, and burst the cannon’s roar;—the meteor of the ocean air shall sweep the clouds no more.” This passage is a good example of how much detail they went into in their literary works of the time. Also, I noticed that it is evident that the Rationalism period somewhat influenced this poem because Holmes is not thinking completely emotional because he acknowledges the fact that the USS Constitution is not going to sail any more, instead of just being completely irrational.

Writers of the Romanticism period also wrote about the values of patriotism, which is exemplified in lines 9 through 16; “Her deck, once red with heroes’ blood, where knelt the vanquished foe, when winds were hurrying o’er the flood, and waves were white below, no more shall feel the victor’s tread, or know the conquered knee” ( Holmes 9-16 ). Writers of this time period were also known to include various allusions and references to mythology, which Holmes does when he says “The harpies of the shore shall pluck the eagle of the sea!” and “And give her to the god of storms, the lightning and the gale!” ( Lines 17-18 and 23-24 ).

Holmes was trying to convince people to see the historical and sentimental significance in the ship, and he is doing a very good job of if because the way that he writes it makes people, including myself, get passionate about it, even if they have never heard of it before this poem.

Also, as Huff pointed out in his analysis of the poem, Holmes decides to relate the ship to an eagle in line 18, which is another very patriotic symbol, even to this day.


Holmes, Oliver Wendell. "Old Ironsides, by Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1885." Ibiblio - The Public's Library and Digital Archive. Web. 14 Dec. 2011.


Huff, Randall. "'Old Ironsides'." The Facts On File Companion to American Poetry, vol. 1. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.

Reflection: Irving

Even though both “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Devil and Tom Walker” were both written by the same person, Washington Irving, they both sound like they could have potentially been written by two different people, just two people in the same writing period. While they were both very descriptive, they seemed to be written by two different authors with different themes they liked to focus on.

“Rip Van Winkle” was mainly about a very likable man living in New York before the Revolutionary War who was always being nagged by his wife because he liked to spend more time helping other people rather than working on his own farm, which was a sad excuse for a farm. It was basically reduced to a small garden due to his neglect. One day, after once again being nagged by his wife, he decided to get away by going out for a hunt. While out in the forest, he meets a stranger carrying a keg of liquor, and after helping him carry it where the man was going, he encounters a group of dwarves bowling. He drinks quite a bit of the liquor, and passes out. When he wakes up and walks back into town, he eventually, after some confusion, discovers that he has been asleep for over twenty years. He is disheartened to find that all of the friends he had in the town are now dead, but then he is relieved at the revelation that his wife is also dead, so he can now live in peace, which is what he goes on to do.

Now there is “The Devil and Tom Walker,” which is a story of a man seeking to make a quick buck who deals with the Devil. The riches that he gains from the Devil goes into his new business, in which he gives out loans with obscenely large interest rates, and when a customer accuses Tom of making a lot of money off of him Tom replies with “The Devil take me if I made a farthing” ( Irving 249 ). At this point, the Devil shows up and takes Tom Walker away.

Some of the similarities between “Rip Van Winkle” and “The Devil and Tom Walker” are that they are both very descriptive, which is a definite characteristic of the Romanticism period, and they both include wives that the husbands were somewhat “happy” to get rid of. One example of the great detail that the Romantic writers go into the following passage from “The Devil and Tom Walker;” 

“They lived in a forlorn looking house that stood alone and had an air of starvation. A few straggling savin trees, emblems of sterility, grew near it; no smoke ever curled from its chimney; no traveller stopped at its door. A miserable horse, whose ribs were as articulate as the bars of a gridiron, stalked about a field where a thin carpet of moss, scarcely covering the ragged beds of pudding stone, tantalized and balked his hunger.” (Irving 242).

On the subject of “Rip Van Winkle,” I was excited to finally read the full story because I’ve always heard about Rip and how he slept for a very long time. In his criticism/analysis of “Rip Van Winkle,” Don D’Ammassa agrees by saying “Rip Van Winkle is one of those characters whose story is so widely known that many readers feel they have read the story even if they have not.” The longevity of Irving’s story shows how the Romanticism period had a definite impact on American culture to this day.


D'Ammassa, Don. "'Rip Van Winkle'." Encyclopedia of Fantasy and Horror Fiction. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.


Irving, Washington. The Devil and Tom Walker. Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 242-250. Print.



Matthews, Brander, ed. The Short-Story: Specimens Illustrating Its Development. New York: American Book Company, 1907; Bartleby.com, 2000.

Reflection: Thanatopsis

This story is very hard to get my mind around. There seems to be many different things that Bryant is trying to get across. He starts off by talking about how having a “communion” with nature which is a token characteristic of the Romanticism period (Bryant 2). It then moves on to talk about Nature, giving it traits such as having “a voice of gladness, and a smile and eloquence of beauty.” Another trait of the Romanticism is exemplified in the first couple of lines in the poem. Bryant says “she speaks a various language; for his gayer hours she has a voice of gladness, and a smile and eloquence of beauty, and she glides into his darker musings, with a mild and healing sympathy, that steals away their sharpness, ere he is aware” (Bryant 2-8). This passage shows that Bryant thinks that Nature is more of a caring mother than a benevolent force.

The rest of the poem is where the name of the poem, which means “Thoughts on Death,” starts to show itself. Where it starts is when Bryant says

“When thoughts of the last bitter hour come like a blight over thy spirit, and sad images of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall, and the breathless darkness, and the narrow house, make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart.” (Bryant 8-13)

This passage starts to turn to the subject of the poem to death and how nature shepherds us into a peaceful slumber. Bryant says that nature is there to soothe your mind when you start to think about death. He goes on to say that it makes him “sick at heart” to think about putting the body of a loved one in a coffin and putting them in their grave, or in a “narrow house” (Bryant 12). Then he goes on to talk about how one’s body becomes part of the Earth. Bryant’s view on that is that the “Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, and, lost each human trace, surrendering up thine individual being, shalt thou go to mix forever with the elements” (Bryant 22-26). He also makes a statement that shows how he holds nature in high regard; he says “To be a brother to the insensible rock, and to the sluggish clod” (Bryant 27-28).

In an analysis of Thanatopsis by Randall Huff, he agrees with me on the point that this poem is trying to show how death is universal, and therefore nothing to fear. Randal says “A turning point in the poem occurs when Nature bgins to list the various stages of man at the time of death. This roll call reinforces the poem’s theme of the universality of death.”

Another way to tell that this poem is showing how death is universal is when it starts talking about how when you die, you are joining everybody else that has died in your grave. “Thou shalt lie down with patriarchs of the infant world,—with kings, the powerful of the earth,—the wise, the good, fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, all in one mighty sepulcher” (Bryant 33-37).


Huff, Randall. "'Thanatopsis'." The Facts On File Companion to American Poetry, vol. 1. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.


Lounsbury, Thomas R., ed. Yale Book of American Verse. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1912; Bartleby.com, 1999.

Daily Journal #19

The cycle of life and death is a very important topic for humans. Peoples of the past have always been fascinated by the idea of death, and I have a feeling that it will continue to interest people for the rest of our existence. Death is one of the only things that we can not research in any way. We can see the physical effects after someone has died, but when a person dies, only they know what death is really like, and by then, it is too late for them to prove or disprove any theory for the people still living. Different religions have tried to predict what happens after a person dies. Christians think that there is a soul and that it goes either to heaven or hell, depending on how the person acted in their life. Then there are religions like Hinduism that teach that the soul of any living thing gets reincarnated into another living being in a cycle until the soul is “good” enough to enter nirvana, their version of heaven. Then of course there are atheists, which believe that nothing happens after you die, there is no soul or any kind of spiritual afterlife. Most atheists are scientists who do not see any proof that there is a soul or afterlife.

In any instance, people are fascinated with the idea of death. Most are scared of it because it presents a situation that we have no control over; it happens to everybody and there is no way to escape it. The fact that nobody knows for sure whether or not there is an afterlife or not also adds to the fear people feel when they think about death.

In my personal opinion, I think that people should not concentrate so much on the differences between their beliefs and just live life to make it better for yourself, everybody else that is currently alive, and for the people that come after us.

Reflection: Fireside Poets

The poets and writers of the Romanticism period in American literature are definitely different in the style in which they write their stories or poems. The Puritan writers during the great awakening focused mostly on how God had done something in their lives or about how God had affected something that had happened in the world, basically no matter how bad or good it was, it was always God’s doing.

Then, when the time came closer to the American Revolutionary War, people like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, and Patrick Henry. These new thinkers brought new religious ideas like Deism, and they also brought the writing style of Rationalism into popularity. They focused more upon rational thought and facts rather than religious explanations.

Then the Fireside Poets and their Romantic writing style came along. These poets were smart people like the writers if the Rationalism period, but they were not focused so much on facts and things about learning. They focused more on things like nature and emotions. They wrote about the values that people should have. Most of these values were ones that they took from ordinary people. Values like courage, patriotism, loving nature, working hard and respecting the various members of one’s family. These values were thought to be what people should strive to attain.

The best way, I think, to exemplify the differences between the three writing styles would be to present a situation and show what each style of writer would write about it.

The first situation that would show the differences in the writing styles would be when the United States was going to scrap out the USS Constitution for the iron in its hull. The Puritan would most likely write about how it should be destroyed because of all the lives it took in the Revolutionary War. They might say that God had told them to destroy it for some reason. The Rationalism writer would probably support the idea of scraping the war ship because it would be useful for the country if they could use the iron in the ship because the ship was no longer needed. Then there’s the Romantic writer, Oliver Wendell Holmes, who wrote about the USS Constitution. He said that it should not be scraped in his poem Old Ironsides. He talks of how it was a very good ship and it felt the knee of many “vanquished foes” (Holmes 10). He goes on to say that it would be “better that her shattered hulk should sink beneath the wave” than be scraped for her metal (Holmes 17). This shows that even though there is no more need for the ship, they should not scrap it for the metal because it was such an important war ship and that “her thunders shook the mighty deep, and there should be her grave” (Holmes 19-20). It also says that “The harpies of the shore shall pluck the eagle of the sea!” (Holmes 15-16). This both shows that poets of the Romanticism period included mythology (harpies) and that they disliked the Rationalists by calling them harpies and calling the ship an eagle.

Holmes, Oliver. Old Ironsides. Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 211. Print.

Daily Journal #18

The perfect autumn day would be the best day in the year, better than the best spring day, better than the best summer day, and most definitely better than the best winter day. It would be around seventy degrees outside, but it would feel a little bit colder due to the light breeze sweeping through the forests. This little bit of wind would be enough to kick up the rustling leaves on the ground. You would be able to walk outside and hear the distant sounds of someone using a leaf blower to round up the fluttering leaves into a pile so that his children could play in them. You could smell the distinct smell of a fire burning old logs for a bonfire. You could also smell, mixed in with the light smoke, a stronger smell of a charcoal fire; someone is starting up a family cookout. You could hear dogs barking and children laughing as they played fetch and the children jumping into the piles of leaves that their fathers had made them shortly before. You could hear the rustling of the dead leaves still on the trees as the tops of the trees swayed with the wind. Even with all of the noises and the smells, it still feels calm and serene. You can almost feel the trees preparing for their long slumber through the cold and harsh winter, but they do not seem to resent it nor fight it, they just accept it as the way things go. You can also see, in the trees and on the ground, the various animals who are also preparing for the winter. The squirrels are collecting and hiding their acorns and they are also building their new houses in the trees for their families. The flocks upon flocks are flying south to escape the cold clutches of winters grip, and we are bundling up and watching everything around us happen in quiet attentiveness.

Daily Journal #17

There have many times that I can remember where I bonded with nature. When I was a bit younger, maybe somewhere back in the early 2000’s, I was in the boy scouts. As you probably already know, boy scouts go out all the time to go camping and go hiking and things like that. The main point of doing those things was that we were able to bond with nature and see the beauty in just natual, untoughed nature.

We went camping all the time at different places. I enjoyed camping very much because it gave me a chance to relax and enjoy the simple thing in life. Nature has a very calming effect, and it is hard not to feel bonded to nature when you are sleeping outside. I think that this has to do with people in the modern world connecting sleeping outside or in tents with people who came before us, like the Native Americans. Most people, or at least it seems like most people do this, connect the Native Americans and people like them to having a very deep and spiritual connection with nature. Their religions were based off of nature and they used it for everything they wanted and needed. They tried to be as nice as possible to it because they realized the importance of trying to keep nature as pure as possible. Then the Europeans came along and we started to tear down forests to make way for our cities. Now, when the forests of the world and the untouched wilderness’ dwindling, people are trying to hold on to the last bit of true nature that we still have.

The writers of the romanticism period could see the kind of path that we were going down and they wanted to stop it before it progressed too far, but now it is obvious that it did not go as they had wanted.

Daily Journal #16

There are many different kinds of media available to people in modern society due to the fact that almost everybody now has computers. This fact opens up many different channels through which people can communicate with other people. It used to be that people separated by great distances could not communicate other than letters or a phone call, but now, with the help of computers, there are now many different kinds of long distance communication that greatly improve efficiency.

One of the most popular ways that people communicate now is through text messaging each other. If they have a question they need to ask their research partner, they just text them and they get a response right away. Another very useful tool and one that is increasing in popularity is skype, or any kind of web cam chatting program. This allows people to meet face to face, no matter how far apart they are, as long as they both have computers. They can talk and chat, which allows the exchange of ideas to flow faster, and they can also send each other links to websites that would be helpful with their project or they could send them a document like a powerpoint presentation or a word document so that the other person gets it right away, not just when they check their email next.

I think that advances in technology have expanded the area that people that someone would be able to work with. If there were a person in your research group in England, it would be no problem. You could communicate with them as if they were your next door neighbor. This project on Franklin’s virtues will let us get a taste of what we might have to do once we get into college and we will be prepared and skilled at communicating efficiently with people over a long distance.

Reflection: The Character of Franklin

In the first lines of Henry T. Tuckerman’s “The Character of Benjamin Franklin,” Tuckerman says

“Sixty – six years have elapsed since the mortal remains of Benjamin Franklin were placed beneath a tablet in the Friends’ Cemetery in Philadelphia; the granite obelisk which marks the last resting-place of his parents is a familiar object to all who walk the streets of his native city; but these graves, thus humbly designated, were, until a few days since, the only visible monuments of a name as illustrious as it was endeared.” 

The first phrase of “mortal remains of Benjamin Franklin” gives the sense that Henry T. Tuckerman liked Benjamin Franklin because he the word using the phrase “mortal remains” instead of just saying “Benjamin Franklin was buried.” It gives the reader the sense that Henry Tuckerman thinks that Benjamin Franklin’s body may have been buried, but his ideas, his legacy, lives on. It is also clear that Tuckerman admires Ben Franklin because at the end of the quote he says “a name as illustrious as it was endeared.”
He follows up that passage with

“Its fame, however, had become so thoroughly identified with American institutions and life, that an artistic memorial is far more important as a tribute of gratitude and reverence, than as a method of keeping his example before our minds or his image in our hearts.” 

It sounds to me that this guy Tuckerman has a crush on Franklin. In the very first paragraph of his work, he has already talked about how much of a great example Ben Franklin was; how important and loved he was in American society. It is easy to see why though; Ben Franklin was one of the most influential people of the time period. He had his hands in things from the French helping the Americans in the Revolutionary War, to the writing of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. He was like a more popular, more politically important Steve Jobs.

In Franklin’s autobiography, he says tells the story of how a man once wanted his axe as shiny as the edge was, so the blacksmith said he would do it if the man would turn the grinding wheel (Franklin 158). It took a very long time to even start making the axe shiny, and the man was exhausted and when the blacksmith told him to keep going because the axe was only speckled, the man replied “Yes, but I think I like a speckled axe best.” Franklin compared the story to virtues because 

“this may have been the case with many, who, having for want of some such means as I employed found the difficulty of obtaining good and breaking bad habits in other points of vice and virtue, have given up the struggle, and concluded that ‘a speckled axe is best.’" (Franklin 158) 

I think that the main thing that Franklin took away from this was humbleness. He saw that it is very hard to keep a strict moral life, and he says on page 159,

“I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavor, a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been, if I had not attempted it.”

Bloom, Harold, ed. "The Character of Franklin." Benjamin Franklin, Classic Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.


Franklin, Benjamin, and Leonard Woods Labaree. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. New Haven: Yale UP, 1964. Print.

Daily Journal #15

There are many problems that arise when working with people over a long distance. It will be a challenge working with the kids from Farmington for our Franklin virtue project. There is a possibility for many different kinds of communication issues.

There was this one project in my freshman year in introduction to engineering taught by Mr. Andrew Stevenson (I miss him). We were tasked with working with another school, whose name escapes me at the moment, in creating a new kind of locker shelf. We had to discuss different ideas that we thought would work, decide what we wanted to do, and then we had to come up with our final idea. One person in our group had to draw up our final product in Autodesk Inventor and then we had to have a final project where we presented it to our classes. This project is very similar to the one that we are doing now because we have to collaborate with another school over using any kind of media that we could.

Also, let’s be honest, you and I both know that I am turning this blog post in late, and I apologize. One good thing about doing this particular blog late is that I now know what kind of problems that arose during my project. The only real problem that I noticed was that some people did not check their emails that often, so it was hard to stay in touch with them the entire time. One of the best ways that I found to stay in touch with most of my group members was facebook. Whether it is a good thing or not, people tend to check their facebook all the time. If it is somewhere in plain sight, it is usually the best way to communicate with people, which is now facebook or some other kind of social media.

Daily Journal #14

If I were alive during Franklin’s time period, it would be much different than what my life is like now. There was no indoor plumbing, cars, or electricity. If I were to be alive during the time period I would want to be the apprentice of Benjamin Franklin. This is because I am the type of person that likes science, and Benjamin Franklin was a very notable scholar and inventor. He invented many things from a popular stove to lightning rods. He also just seems like a very enjoyable person to be around. From his writing, I can tell that he is not that mean of a person and he has a good sense of humor, which would make it easier to be his apprentice.

My typical day would probably be getting up early (because it seems to me that everybody got up early then, then I would go to school. I think that if Benjamin Franklin were to actually have an apprentice, I would think that he would want one that could read, write, and one that would be good at problem solving as to help Benjamin when he needed some help on something. After getting out of school, I would go help Benjamin Franklin at his printing house for the remainder of my day, except for some time to go home and study what I learned in school today.

It is hard to imagine what life was like back then. To us, it seems very strange, but to them, it seems perfectly normal; they do not know any other life than the one that they were living then. I bet if they came to the future, to our time, they would think it was just as weird as we think theirs is. It is all about the perspective.

Daily Journal #13

I do not think that the “American Dream” has changed much over the last several decades, maybe even farther than that. Most people came to America from Europe to start a new life; to get at chance to make a name for themselves in a new frontier. The same could be said about recent times. Many people want to invent something new, and now with the new frontier that modern technology brings us, it opens up many opportunities for people to make money and a legacy. At the root of most people’s dreams for their futures, no matter how grand and seemingly unobtainable they appear to be, there is always a want to find a spouse, have kids, be able to provide for their family, and to leave something behind that they want to be remembered by. This is evident in the kind of people that are celebrities in America today. Most of them are not great scientific or philosophic minds. Instead, most of them are wealthy people, well, there is also the kind of celebrity that does ridiculous stunts to get the attention on them, but that is a totally different topic for another blog.

One good example as to why this is what the “American Dream” is, is the way that somebody becomes a celebrity. Even though Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were both great inventors, they were not very well known until they started their companies and started to acquire their large amount of wealth. Most people that go to college aspire to use what they study in the future to change the world for the better.

The only difference between the American dream of today’s society and one of a few generations ago, there is a different standard of being “Successful”. In today’s world, with the more and more of the wealth being controlled by a certain few, and therefore creating wealthy people even wealthier, to focus has seemed to shift more off of getting a job so one’s able to provide for their family to being getting as much money as one can in their life, which is not always the best thing, because “Money can’t buy you happiness.”

Reflection: Franklin's Virtues/ Deism

The virtues that Franklin laid out in his autobiography reflect the beliefs and ideas of deism. I think this because all of the virtues sound they have a religious undertone to them. Deists did not necessarily believe that there is no “God”, it is more like a belief that God is not tied down to a particular religion because they find it hard to believe in something that’s only basis is based on divine revelation (Quinn). Deists seem to be more of the rational people who look at religion in a logical way, instead of a faith based one. They believe that God simply made the world as we know it, and just stepped away and let people settle their own problems and survive on their own (Quinn). I think that this has to do more with the fact that since they are more analytical than most people, they would have a hard time believing in miracles, which are what some religions base their faiths on.



It is a well known fact that Benjamin Franklin was a very famous Deist. It is very evident in the passage we read from his autobiography. In one instance he quoted Addison's Cato, "'Here will I hold. If there's a power above us, (And that there is all nature cries aloud through all her works), He must delight in virtue; and that which He delights in must be happy'" (Franklin 154). The fact that he quoted this shows that he is definitely a deist because he, like Addison, believes that there is a God, and the way you can tell that there is one is by looking at the world around you. All of the things in nature are proof to His existence.



I think that Franklin ended up coming out of this whole experience a better person. This is because, for one, it is hard to follow a strict code for an extended period of time, and the fact that he could stick to it shows that he is a strong willed person, and he went on to talk about how he started improving on other virtues, he had a hard time on the virtue Order because he was very busy. He also claimed that he was smart, so he was able to keep track of his things in all of his clutter, and that it was difficult to work with other people while also working with his and their schedules (Franklin 159). After many years of following this strict moral code, Franklin says “But on the whole, though I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavour, a better and happier man than I otherwise should have been, if I had not attempted it; as those who aim at perfection writing by imitating the engraved copies, though they never reach the wished-for excellence of those copies, their hand is mended by the endeavour, and is tolerable while it continues fair and legible” (Franklin 159).





Franklin, Benjamin, and Leonard Woods Labaree. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. New Haven: Yale UP, 1964. Print.


Quinn, Edward. "deism." A Dictionary of Literary and Thematic Terms, Second Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006.Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.

Daily Journal #12

Well, this is an odd question to ask. There are many different directions I could take this. Well, obviously I’m going to take the route that gives me the most words so that I can finish this blog as fast as I can. If I were to write my own rules for what was right and what was wrong, it would look fairly similar to what they are currently. I think that you should basically be able to do whatever you wanted, as long as it did not infringe upon anyone else’s rights. I think that would cover most things like murder, theft, and things like that. I think that eventually I would change my rules a little by little until they are basically the same as they are now just because of the fact that I believe that the rules that people make are ones that every person thinks are fair rules just because it is the way that most people think. Granted, there are a few crazy people out there that would not agree with some of the rules that are only there to protect them, but that will always happen. It is simply human nature to want to set up a set of rules and guidelines as to help us discern right from wrong. Most people would agree that there would be no murder, no stealing, nothing like that, which shows that rules for some things don’t have to be written down or explicitly stated for people to believe. There are some more intricate things that would need their own rules due to their complex nature. Thinks like how banks should act and how we should handle our economy and other complicated things that do not fall into whether or not it hurts someone else, directly, or indirectly.

I think that businesses should be required to pay all of the taxes that they are supposed to, especially big businesses that make billions every year but they somehow manage to slip through some loopholes *cough* G.E. *cough*cough*.

Daily Journal #11

There are many different aphorisms that I could choose to analyze. There’s “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”, “a chain is only as strong as its weakest link”, “a fool and his money are soon parted”, “a job worth doing is worth doing well”, “a man is known by the company he keeps”, “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”, “actions speak louder than words”, “history repeats itself”, and many, many, many more. My favorites include “a fool and his money are soon parted” because I like money and I have some past experience where I have bought some things foolishly and then regretted it, “a man is known by the company he keeps” because I have found it very true when applied to some people at our school, and “actions speak louder than words”. I think that I will write about “actions speak louder than words” mostly just because it is really easy to write for a long time about and before I know it, I’ll be done with this blog and I’ll be on to the next three I have to do and then do my vocabulary for unit two and then AP chemistry and Spanish. It is going to be a fun night, and it’s already two in the morning.


I think that it is very true that actions do indeed speak louder than words because there are a lot of people that say they are going to do something, they get really ambitious and then they get everyone’s hopes up and then they never come through. This is very prevelant after the New Year because people make their “New Year’s resolutions”, basically a list of things that they know for a fact that they are never going to do. Another example of where people need to start doing things instead of just saying they will would be in the American Political system. All you hear nowadays is all of the things they are going to do, but nothing ever happens, ever.

Reflection: Benjamin Franklin

So basically, this whole story was about how Benjamin Franklin rode a boat to Philadelphia from Burlington Virginia having spent a couple of nights waiting for a boat, and then after finding one, gets to Philadelphia where he immediately buys a large amount of bread, gets a drink at the river, gives away his remaining bread, then promptly falls asleep at during a meeting at the local Quaker meeting house (Franklin 106- 108).


The story does not seem that interesting when told by an outside source such as myself, but when Franklin tells it himself, it seems to make the story suddenly become much more interesting and comical rather than boring and thought provoking. I could easily see myself reading the rest of Franklin’s autobiography just by listening to this short section of the beginning of it. There is just a way in that he tells his story that makes it actually entertaining to listen to him talk about riding on a boat, eating, and sleeping. If anyone else tried to do that, it would put me to sleep almost immediately. It is true that almost anything would put me to sleep right now, seeing as how it’s 1:30 in the morning and I still have several daily journals to finish and AP Chemistry lab write-up, and a Spanish letter some kid in Peru, but I had no time this weekend because it was my birthday today, well, yesterday now I guess, and my brothers birthday was on Friday so I had no time to do any homework with all of the stuff going on for our compound birthdays. Maybe I could have an extra day for journals for my birthday? Just a suggestion. Anyway, I also like the choice in reader that they chose to iterate this segment of Franklin’s autobiography. It seemed to me more of what Franklin’s actual voice would sound like, kind of a wise old grandpa that still had a good sense of humor and a good memory that could remember all of the things that had ever happened to him. I can easily see how he was very well liked in the colonies and how the French loved him. It is not hard to imagine Franklin going to France and telling them stories like these and having them love him immediately and thereafter Franklin convinces them to sympathize with the American cause and help us defeat the British.


His writing style to me does not seem to me like either rational or puritan. He does not talk of either God or of some kind of intellectual discourse. Instead, he seems more to just present the facts as how they happened, with a slight ironic backing, like when he said

“I have been the more particular in this description of my journey, and shall be so of my first entry into that city, that you may in your mind compare such unlikely beginnings with the figure I have since made there.” (Franklin 108)

This shows how he does not make the reader try to guess what he is trying to reference or trying to make the reader think about, he brings it up plainly so that the reader can easily discern what to really think about. I also like how he has a kind of light writing style and then randomly adds in “heavy” phrases like “Man is sometimes more generous when he has little money than when he has plenty; perhaps to prevent his being thought to have but little” (Franklin 108).


Franklin, Benjamin. "from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 106-108. Print

Reflection: The Crisis, No. 1

This excerpt was a very interesting read. I read it once to myself and it did not have that much of an effect on me as it should have, seeing how it was about trying to encourage the people of the colonies to rise up and help fight for their independence even though the battle was going badly thus far. But then I decided to have the book program read it to me so that maybe I would better grasp what Thomas Paine was trying to convey to the reader. Like most of the time, having someone else read something to you helps you understand what someone would have felt like if the author was actually saying this directly to them instead of just a person reading it at home to themselves. Admittedly I was a little bit disappointed that the voice was not the person from Jonathan Edward’s Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God and Patrick Henry’s Speech to the Second Virginia Convention. Okay, I know that I do say that about basically every story or excerpt that we have to read but I really do mean it this time. The message would have been much more convincing when someone was yelling it at you. The guy that did it did have a couple of parts where he had some passion, but definitely not as much as that other guy does.

So, now on to the subject of how this work shows that it is indeed a work of the rationalism period; there were many instances where Paine used more of a rational approach to the problem rather than using a religious pretext, which would have made the work more of a puritan writing rather than a rational one.

When Paine started talking about how the hard fight that they were fighting currently was going to eventually pay off, and it would be even better just because of the fact that they had to work so hard at it, he said 

Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated. (Paine 134)

This quote shows how he is trying to convey rationally how they need to keep fighting so they can attain their final goal: freedom. Another quote that shows rationalistic writing style is “It is surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run through a country. All nations have been subject to them:” and then he goes on to list examples and how it pertains to the colonies (Paine 135). This shows how he is using the reasoning that history repeats itself to try and prove his point. He goes on to explain how sometimes panic can be good. It brings things to light that otherwise would have gone unnoticed. That it brings out the “secret traitors” that would have gone unknown (Paine 135).

Paine, Thomas. "from The Crisis, No. 1" Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 134-136. Print

Reflection: Declaration of Independance

I have never really read the Declaration of Independence. I know, it’s pretty bad. I have lived in the United States my whole life, and I have not read the document that our whole country was founded on and the very reason why we, the United States, are the United States, and still not colonies to Great Britain. Now, I assume we would have eventually broken free at one point, but as far as we know, this is the only way it would have happened. I thought that it was going to be long and boring, but it was not too bad. Okay, maybe I did get a little bored toward the middle of the document, but towards the end I got interested again. The main reason very may well be that the voice that they used to read Patrick Henry’s Speech to the Second Virginia Convention and Jonathan Edward’s Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Whoever reads those two easily keeps the reader interested.

Once I read the part of the Declaration where it starts listing off reasons that they need to separate from England, I started to see how Jefferson could easily overstep the lines of rational argument and start using faulty logic and propaganda techniques to get his point across. Most of the first reasons that Jefferson started to list off seemed pretty logical like

Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us; For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states; for transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offenses. (Jefferson 123)

I can understand that people in the colonies would be a little mad if the King started to make me house his soldiers and that the soldiers could do anything they wanted and they could just get a rigged trial so they would not get in any trouble. I would also have a problem if I was accused of a fake crime and I had to be shipped all the way back to England to be tried on false charges.

After a while though, he started to get sloppier. He started to say things like

He (the King) has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. (Jefferson 124)

In the above quote, Jefferson starts to go into the field of faulty logic trying to support his argument. He has no proof for the claims that the King waged war on them and destroyed and plundered the colonies. The next pargraph contains even more false logic:

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. (Jefferson 124)

That quote is just full of claims without proof and more prominent is some very obvious name calling. Jefferson starts calling the British soldiers mercenaries and starts using words like “death”, “desolation”, “tyranny”, “cruelty”, “barbarous”, and “unworthy” to try to demonize the British as to make them seem way worse than they really were so that Jefferson could make it seem like the revolutionists were in the right.


Jefferson, Thomas. "The Declaration of Independence." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 120-124. Print.

"Recognizing Propaganda--Guide to Critical Thinking--Academic Support." 3 June 2011. Web. 27 Sept. 2011. <http://academic.cuesta.edu/acasupp/as/404.htm>.

Daily Journal #10

I personally think that you should not make us, and by us I mean our A-1 English class, who cares about that other English class; make them do the vocab for all I care. I think that our vocab assignment should not be assigned today because I am quite behind on my other daily blogs and reflection journals. I also have quite a lot of homework in all of my other classes like AP Chemistry, Pre-Calculus, American History, Spanish Two, and Physics. So as you can see, I need more time to devote to my other classes. Most of the other people in my class have about the same schedule. So they too have the same problem as I am plagued by.

There is a side note though, as you already know, I am writing this quite a while after the due date. So I obviously already know that we ended up doing the vocab anyway. That was mostly due to the choice to read Mitch’s blog. If you remember correctly, he thought that we were supposed to make an argument that made no sense what so ever. He said something along the lines of how vocab causes global warming.

Anyway, I already know that we did the vocab. So I have really have no motivation to try really hard to try and convince you not to give us one. I also have not done the vocab in the first place because I have been so bogged down by the homework in the other classes I have mentioned in the first paragraph of this blog. Well, that’s enough words. Can’t say I didn’t try.

Reflection: Patrick Henry

Well, well, well, look what we have here; the crazy voice guy from Jonathan Edward’s Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. The one that gets very worked up very easily and his voice gets almost violent, well, more so in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God than Speech to the Second Virginia Convention. I do not necessarily think that it is a bad thing that he was the voice though. I think that he is perfectly suited for reading these kind of passages. His emotion helps get the reader into the mindset of what the passage is even supposed to be about. I think that this man’s glorious voice represents what Patrick Henry sounded like when he gave his speech to the Second Virginia Convention. It gets the point across very well. It is very persuasive and moving, perfect for the kind of message that Henry was trying to convey to the members of the Convention. If anything would stir people up enough to even consider the idea of a revolution, it would be a speech like this. I know that for myself, I would have supported him; just listening to it got me stirred up and its over 250 years after he made the original speech!

Anyway, enough about the narrator’s magical, entrancing voice. What was the question again? Oh yes, I am tasked with analyzing the rationalism content in the story. This should not be that tough. I already have almost 250 words anyway. Half way there!

I will start off by quoting Henry in his opening statement: “There is no time for ceremony” (Henry 116). I think this helps set the tone for the rest of the speech. He brings up the importance in the matter of speed up later in the speech when he says:

“They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house?” (Henry 118).

It shows that Patrick Henry was definitely in the time period when people were shifting more towards a rationalistic approach rather than a view dominated by religious biases and tendencies when he backs up the quote I showed above by saying:

“Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?” (Henry 118)

The reasoning helps get the message of action across to the audience. The definition of rationalism is that people “believed that all questions about life must be approached rationally and that truth must be discovered through reason” (Boucquey). That is exactly what Henry did. He is basically saying that right now, they are just lying around lying to themselves about peace while they are the strongest they are ever going to be. This is a very strong argument because it makes a lot of sense and it is actually true so it is good that he propelled people forth in the matter of action. He talked more of reason and realistic approaches rather than religious reasons and things such as that. He did mention God a couple of times, but let it be noted that he did use the words “us,” “our,” and “they” rather than “He” and “his” (by what I read).

Boucquey, Thierry, gen. ed. "rationalism." Encyclopedia of World Writers, 14th through 18th Centuries. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2005. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.

Henry, Patrick. Speech to the Second Virginia Convention. Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 116-118. Print.

Reflection: The Crucible Act 4

The first sentence in Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God was long and drawn out. It set the pace for the rest of the story:

So that thus it is, that the natural men are held in the hand of God over the pit of hell; they have deserved the fiery pit, and are already sentenced to it; and God is dreadfully provoked, his anger is as great towards them as to those that are actually suffering the executions of the fierceness of his wrath in hell, and they have done nothing in the least, to appease or abate that anger, neither is God in the least bound by any promise to hold them up one moment; the devil is waiting for them, hell is gaping for them, the flames gather and flash about them, and would fain lay hold on them and swallow them up; the fire pent up in their own hearts is struggling to break out; and they have no interest in any Mediator, there are no means within reach that can be any security to them. (Edwards 97)

Obviously Jonathan Edwards was not very good with grammar because he could have easily split that first sentence up into enough sentences to make up a good sized paragraph. If I have ever seen a run-on sentence, this would be one of the prime examples of what NOT to do. I guess it is not that bad considering he wrote this in the eighteenth century when most people were not able to read or write, and very rarely both.

Anyway, I guess I will stop ranting about his writing style. He is the one that was a nationally recognized author in his time after all. There are a few parallels that I can draw between Jonathan Edward’s Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. On the surface, the easiest connection would be the fact that they both have to do with religion. Both are equally ridiculous. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God is just trying to scare people into being “good” Christians by telling them things like:

The bow of God’s wrath is bent, and the arrow mad ready on the string, and justice bends the arrow at your heart, and strains the bow, and it is nothing but the mere pleasure of God, and that of an angry God, without any promise or obligation at all, that keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood. (Edwards 98)

The technique might have worked pretty well for a while, but I do not think that people would put up with someone like that in today’s society. In The Crucible, all of the people who were thought to be “witches” were only thought to be because two girls start sprouting random names as to make themselves seem like gifts from God (Miller 48). Another thing that seems very strange today would be the fact that if they plead guilty, they were jailed for life, but if they did not confess to their supposed crimes, they were hanged. Seemed like a lose-lose situation for those accused. All because some girls wanted to dance in the woods and were too afraied to admit it. That in and of itself would put the blame back onto the society for making things so boring that people had to resort to things like this; ergo, the blame goes back to people like Jonathan Edwards for making anything that didn’t have to do with church or God a deadly sin.

Edwards, Jonathan. "From Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 97-99. Print.

Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. New York, NY: Penguin, 1996. Print.

Daily Journal #9

Whoops! Looks like I forgot to write a daily journal number nine. Well this is awkward. Sorry about that journal number nine. Here, let me make it up to you, I’ll write you really quick and put you in your proper spot. Does that sound good? Good, I’ll try to hurry.


Okay, so I’m supposed to write about a time that someone handled a situation using a rational approach. Well, it has happened so many times that it is hard to pick a good example to use for this blog. I could use Thomas Edison and how he created the light bulb, or how Nikola Tesla created AC current, as opposed to DC current.


I think that I will use the Tesla example, mostly because I understand it fairly well and it is easy to write about, mostly because there are a lot of technical things that I could blather on about and then waste words until I am done with this blog.


The reason that I chose how Tesla created AC current was because there was a problem that he saw, and so he decided to find a way to solve it. He noticed that there were an excessive amount of wires running through New York City that brought DC power to the city. The problem was that with DC current, it gets very weak the longer it travels, and so there had to be transformers very often and the wires had to be quite large. DC (direct current) just sent electricity in a loop, from plant to the houses, then back through the plant and so on. Tesla came up with the idea of instead of having a static positive and negative end in the power grid, he could alternate each end between positive and negative so that the electricity would keep recycling itself by going back into the grid (this is possible because the electrons are not actually used up, but simply continue down the system after going through electronics). This alternating current, AC current, allowed for much smaller wires and the need for very few less power stations due to the fact that the power stayed very strong even across very long distances.

Daily Journal #8

AUTUMN.  Autumn is my favorite season.  It is the perfect temperature about 75 percent of the time, the other 25 percent being rain or an unusually chilly day.  I can come out to my car after school, and it won't be 110 degrees on the inside, and I will actually be able to put my red Grand Am into drive and hold my steering wheel for longer than .2 seconds.  My car will be just toasty enough to warm me up after the slightly brisk walk to the parking lot.  It's amazing!  My Grand Am will not be too cold either.  I don't have to turn my car on ten minutes early to let the engine warm up, and I don't have to sit and freeze in it after school while I wait for Leanne to get to my car, even though she usually beats me to my car anyway.  ALSO, my birthday is in autumn- October 23rd to be exact!
Another reason I like autumn is that I like to wear jeans.  I know what you're thinking: WOAH! NICK CAMPBELL IN JEANS?  BUT HE ONLY WEARS CARGO SHORTS!  However, I have recently started to wear jeans more often, and I have found that I like them more.  I have really long legs, and I like to think that jeans make them look shorter.  It is too hot to wear them in the summer, but for autumn they are just right.  I also like to wear this Hollister sweater, and autumn is the perfect temperature for it.  I wear it everyday!
Autumn is also pretty neat because of the trees.  Some trees just bypass the pretty colors though and go straight to being brown and dead.  I do not like those trees.  The trees in Washington Park are always very pretty, especially the ones by the Carillon because they are a nice shade of mustard yellow.  I have a friend who likes to collect autumn leaves, and she always goes to the park to get them.

Daily Journal #7

Well, I do not approve of bullying.  Of course the victim is going to be effected more than the bully, unless the bully has a huge guilty conscience, but that is usually quite rare.  However, I would not know because there is not much bullying in this school, so I am making ridiculous assumptions based off of movies and TV shows, like every single show about school on Nickelodeon. SO, victims suffer more than bullies.  They get their lunch money stolen, they get beat up behind the old gym after school, they have to do homework for other people, they get their lunch trays smacked to the floor, they get shoved into lockers between class periods, not to mention they never get the good looking head cheerleader! And that is just the physical abuse!  You can't forget all the emotional abuse they suffer from as well!  All of the victims will inevitably become depressed.  They all go home and either vent to their parents/siblings/friends or they hold it in.  You gotta watch the kids that hold it in, those are the little rascals that'll get revenge on you later... All the bullied kids are also scarred for life!  They are not just going to forget that traumatic of an experience, even if the bully apologizes.

The bully, on the other hand, will most likely not suffer nearly as much as the victim.  They may feel some guilt, maybe even a little bit of regret, but if the bully is never taught that what they are doing is wrong, they could then grow up to become this big super bully.  They believe that they can still use force and brutality to get what they want, but of course we all know that isn't true.  Those are the arrogant bullies though!  Some bullies do in fact have a guilty conscience.  They beat up some nerdy little guy for his lunch money after school, then they go home and sit down and think about what they have done.  Then the guilt just eats away at the back of their mind until they lose it and either go apologize to the nerdy kid or relapse into beating him up again.  Also if a bully is ever caught, they could get in some big ole trouble.  They could be expelled, which looks absolutely atrocious for college and resumes.  So really, bullying is just all-around terrible for both parties.

Daily Journal #6

There are very obvious reasons why this daily journal’s subject is on lying about what someone has done; it is what is happening right now in the crucible. People (the girls) are blaming all of their rivals of “witchcraft” and whatnot, even though it is obvious that they are innocent and they are only confessing because if they don’t they will die so they would rather be stuck in a jail cell for the rest of their lives than b hung. I think I would choose the same too. The justice system in this play is ridiculously horrible because there has only been word that people are witches but now hard evidence. I have not read act four yet, but I hope that the girls either admit to lying the whole time or that someone somehow finds out that they are running a fraud and they are brought to actual for what they have done to the town and its people.

When somebody lies about what somebody else did, they are either trying to blame something on somebody else so that nobody notices what they have done (for the Crucible they are trying to hide the fact that they were dancing naked in the woods and trying to “communicate with the devil”). Another reason that somebody might lie about what somebody did because they are looking for revenge, just like the whole plan that I assume that Abigail demised so that Elizibeth would be out of the picture and she would take her spot. Mary also might want reveng for how John Procter treated her around his house because even though she is not a slave, he constantly threatens to beat her and whip her if she does not follow his directions, like “stay at the house and leave for no reason”.

When the initial lie is exposed, it makes the person the lie was about look like a very good person because people feel bad for believing the rumors, and it makes the person who started the lie look like a person that has no moral compass or that is corrupted. Nobody will most likely ever believe them again, it is basically “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”.

Daily Journal #5

There are most likely many kids these days that do not understand what punishment really is. All I hear people talk about when they get grounded from something all they can say is that they just hate their parents and that they are just “stupid”, but I never hear them say anything about why they were grounded. One time I heard somebody talking about how stupid it was that they got grounded and then somebody asked them why they were and they said something along the lines that they were annoying him and then he cussed them out. I had no idea that it was now apparently acceptable to swear at parents.

Now that most kids do not go out of the house much besides to go hang out with their friends, the old ways of punishment have become, well, obsolete. It is not enough to just ground them so that they can not leave the house because they, or we I should really say, have cell phones, iPods®, Xbox 360s®, and computers. With all of this technology, we can still do pretty much anything that we would do normally except that we would not do it in person. There’s Skype® and Google+® so that we can have video chats, and also there’s Facetime® for the iPhone®. There are computer games which can keep us entertained for hours upon hours very easily.

For a real punishment, it has to do something with taking away a certain privilege, like a cell phone, the computer, or video games etc. Most kids, and most likely including me, would and do have “withdraws” from not having our phones because we have been attached to them; constantly talking to people, mostly through texts. Some kids now a day spend way, way too much time on the computer and on video game consoles. Sometimes it becomes excessive.

One thing, though, that I think has not changed is that parents can still threaten to take away the car; it is a very quick way to scare the kid into behaving because without the car, we have no way to get anywhere and I personally do not like bumming rides off of people because I did something stupid and got my car taken away.

Daily Journal #4

I go on vacations all the time. I used to go to Colorado every summer with my grandparents and my older brother. We drove all the way to Wyoming and we stopped at a lot of places along the way. They were these interesting camp sites and landmarks and things like that. We had a cabin that we went to in the same park every year and we would hike around the area for a couple of days and then we would go fishing and things like that for a couple of days. Then we would drive around the surrounding area and visit different historical and geographical sites. Since I was very young, I do not remember most of it but I do remember getting very homesick really easily. Also being so young had its perks because I had a very short attention span (and I guess the same could be said about me now, but that is neither here nor there) and I would just as quickly find something that would take my mind off of home. Then one year we got in a car accident and the next year I was afraid to go so I stayed home but I regret it because they had a really good time.

I also have been many places by both car and airplane because my mom has moved around the country because my step-dad got better jobs but they were based in different cities. She lived in Springfield, Atlanta, St. Louis, Chicago, Ann Arbor, and now she lives near Washington D.C. As you can see, I have had my fair share of flying by myself. It is harder to get homesick on an airplane because they are so fun to ride on and the flight attendants are very nice to the kids that ride by themselves. All of those plane rides back and forth may have been what got me interested in aerospace engineering, which is what I want to study when I go to college.

Reflection: The Crucible Act 3

I think that human nature is at the heart of this whole book. I think that the story was not written to show what happened in Salem from the point of view of people who were there, but to show the side of humans that people do not want to write about. Everybody has a bad side, no matter how innocent they seem on the outside.

One example of human nature shown in this book would be that people are generally slow to admit their faults. This is displayed by what started all the events in this book, the girls have been lying to everybody so that they will not get in trouble, even if it means that they are going to get other people in trouble, even killed so that they can stay blame-free. Eventually people will admit what they have done like how Mary confessed to John Procter that they are all lying to keep themselves safe (Miller 100). Mary’s confession might have been part of their plan to incriminate John Procter, but it is a truthful confession none the less. Abigail even had previously admitted the lie to John Procter earlier in the play, in Act One actually. When Procter first brought up witchcraft Abigail said “Oh, posh! We were dancin’ in the woods last night, and my uncle leaped in on us. She took fright, is all” (Miller 22). I think that the only reason that Abigail only told him the truth in confidence because she had “feelings” for him still and he could never prove that she said what she did. It would be his word against her word, and at that point in time the children were considered to always be telling the truth.

I also think that is a part of human nature to fear things just because other people fear them. In this case, people were afraid of witches all of a sudden because of people like Reverend Hale, who claimed that he had found and expelled a witch in his town (Miller 14). Now that Reverend Hale and others like him have opened the public’s eye to the present “threat” of “witches”, people are starting to claim their neighbors witches on a whim or with revenge or some other kind of gain in mind. It is the perfect excuse for the girls to use, everybody is already wary of “witches” and so when something mysterious happens, they automatically jump to the fear of the time, which in this case it would be witches. When Mary and the rest of the girls act like Mary was possessed by the Devil and Mr. Procter made her do it, the judge immediately believes them even though he can see nothing. Even Reverend Hale is furious because he can not believe that the judge would actually think that the girls were serious and telling the truth just because they act like they are being “attacked” by the Devil (Miller 120). I would be very upset if Danforth was my judge.

Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. New York, NY: Penguin, 1996. Print.

Reflection: The Crucible Act 2

Before I go onto a whole reflection blog about what each of the major characters’ “True Colors” are, I thought it would be appropriate for me to give a brief overview of the “True Colors” so people know what I am referring to.

The color blue is one of the four true colors. People who are “Blue” are thought to be helpers. They are sensitive and they like to talk and be around people; very social. They want to make a difference in someone’s life (“Blue”). There are also people that are “Orange”. Orange people are considered to be people that get things done. They are natural born leaders and risk takers (“Orange”). Then there are a group of people that are considered “Gold”. Gold, to me at least, sounds like the coolest one to be, just because it’s gold and gold is really nice. The gold people are thought to be people who like to plan. They are an organizer that has high respect for authority; a strong moral compass. Good for managing, detail, and getting the job done before relaxing or taking a break (“Gold”). Finally, there are the people who are lumped into the group of “Green” people. Green people are considered to be the logical thinkers, the people who enjoy solving one problem and moving on to another one when the first one is solved. They are independent and also tend to strive to become leaders of some sort. Most scientists and researchers are green people (“Green”). Now, we shall move onto the characters and their true colors.

First we have Mr. Procter. Procter to me is a “green” kind of person. He does not seem that sensitive so he is not a “blue” person. He is also not a “gold” person because he rebels against authority, like when he rips the warrant for his wife’s arrest (Miller 76). He also talks about how he does not like Parris and that is why he does not go to church every Sunday (Miller 65). He is also not an “orange” because he does not seem to act upon his impulses, well, except for that whole thing with Abigail, but let’s drop that sore subject. He seems to be very analytical because he immediately was suspicious of the whole situation with witchcraft and then it was backed up when Abigail told him that it was not witchcraft but they were just messing around in the forest (Miller 22). I also found it very similarly “green” of him to have a disposition ready before they went to court (yes I know I’m jumping ahead) (Miller 99)

I think that that Elizabeth Procter would be considered being an “orange”, mostly because when the court people show up to take her to jail for “witchcraft” she tells John to let them do it and that he find a viable way for him to get her out rather than trying to resist her arrest, which would be hard to do considering there are 9 other policemen outside of their house.

"Blue Card Results." Follow Your True Colors. Web. 12 Sept. 2011.

Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. New York, NY: Penguin, 1996. Print.

"True Colors Career Gold Card." Follow Your True Colors. Web. 12 Sept. 2011.

"True Colors Career Green Card Results." Follow Your True Colors. Web. 12 Sept. 2011.

"True Colors Career Orange Card Results." Follow Your True Colors. Web. 12 Sept. 2011.

Reflection: The Crucible Act I

The Crucible by Arthur Miller is full of Puritan beliefs and values that are clearly expressed throughout the play. It comes as no surprise though because the play is, after all, about people thinking that a sick girl was being cursed or influenced by a witch. There is no way that it could possibly be a regular sickness or sever anxiety over being thought that she was a witch or that she was partaking in demonic practices, which would be a very bad look for the daughter of the town’s pastor. In this time period, people get ran out of town for less severe things than being accused of being a witch.

One example from the book that shows just how gullible people were and what their beliefs were like was when Giles Corey was talking to Reverend John Hale about how his wife was “reading strange books” and how she always hides them when he comes into the room. And then Giles goes on to tell Reverend Hale that one night, when Giles was trying to recite his nightly prayers, he could not remember them and was stunned that when his wife closes the book and then goes out of the house, he can remember the prayers perfectly. He thinks that there may be something weird about those books that make it so he can not remember his prayers. Then the author goes on to tell about how Giles is getting old and his memory is fading and that he only recently learned those prayers, so it is far more likely that his wife was distracting him by reading the books which made him forget, and when she left, he was no longer distracted so he could recite the needed prayers (Miller 40). This shows just how much they attributed everything in this time period to being from the “Devil” if it is bad, and that anything good is from the “Lord”.

I think that the quote “Now mark me, if the Devil is in her you will witness some frightful wonders in this room, so please to keep your wits about you. Mr. Putnam, stand close in case she flies” shows that back then they not only thought that people and objects could be possessed by the Devil and his minions, but that they could make people do things like fly and other unnatural things along those lines (Miller 41).

Pages thirty two through thirty six is just one long paragraph talking about how it was the people like the citizens of Salem who were actually to blame for all of the devil obsession. The church community made up all of these things that were associated with the devil, like sex and having parties which was originally associated with the Greek god Dionysus, and so they made sin look even more appealing to people (Miller 36). They made the devil a major part of their society by the people who were supposed to be the ones “protecting” the public from the “evil”.

Miller, Arthur. The Crucible: a Play in Four Acts. New York: Penguin, 1976. Print.

Daily Journal #3

One of the worst possible situations I could ever find myself to be in would to be captured by some crazy person and held in their basement/cave/dungeon/lair thing that nobody could ever find me. Who knows? They could be some millionaire with a crazy and elaborite maze to even get to his basement so that theres is no way that anybody could even come close to finding me and rescuing me. Or it could be all the way out in the woods where there is no town or settlement of some sort for hundreds of miles. That would most likely be in Alaska or Montana or somewhere where nobody wants to live. Alaska would be worse though because it would obviously be very cold there, but if I am underground it might not matter.

Anywho, if I were captured by someone, I would immediately start thinking of an escape plan. I have seen way to many movies where the person who does not do anything is the first one to go because they are the easiest targets. I would try to see all of the different security systems that he has and if I were blindfolded, I would try to remember how to get to their house just in case I do escape, I will need to be able to find my way back into town for help. I would use my ingenuity to get around the various security measures they would have put up. I have watched enough Prison Break to know my way around things like that. If there were a maze of some sort, I would just put my hand on the right wall and keep walking. If it lead people out of the legendary Labyrinth of Daedalus in Greek mythology, I think a simple maze without any evil monsters will work on about the same principle.

If I were in a situation where I could not ever conceive of escaping, I would stay in a constant state of denial, I would always try to remain positive that I could eventually escape.

Reflection of Bradford

The Puritan writing style is once again easily shown in the simple and short terse writing style that is similar to the kind of writing that was used in Anne Bradstreet’s Upon the Burning of Our House and The Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson by Mary Rowlandson. At the very beginning of the journal entry, Bradford broke away from the Puritan writing style, even though it was just a brief amount of time. He made a longer sentence than I was expecting to see:

These trouble being blown over, and now all being compact together in one ship, they put to sea again with a prosperous wind, which continued divers days together, which was some encouragement unto them; yet, according to the usual manner, many were afflicted with sea sickness. (Bradford 15)

 It was also fairly descriptive compared to his other sentences, I think.

It is very obvious right off of the bat that he is a Christian; one because he is a pilgrim on the Mayflower, and two because his second sentence, right after he just got done talking about sea sickness, was “And I may not omit here a special work of God’s providence” (Bradford 15). It is not surprising that Bradford had to include something about god doing this or god causing this or god helping him do that because it just wouldn’t be a Puritan writing without it. They seem to not being able to go 20 seconds without mentioning god and what he has done for them. It seems like nothing they do is ever because they had the smarts or the courage or the wherewithal to stick something out. It apparently was required to come from some other source.

Sorry for the little rant, but I got on my nerves a teany tiny bit. Anyway, as I was saying, this is clearly a Puritan writing. God, or some kind of allusion or reference to him, is basically everywhere you look in this thing. There was not much description, just facts about what happened as the writer saw them. It was about a young man who 

“would always be condemning the poor people in their sickness, and cursing them daily with grievous execrations, and did not let them that he hoped to help to cast half of them overboard before they came to their journey’s end, and to make merry with what they had; and if he were by any gently reproved, he would curse and swear most bitterly” (Bradford 15).

 It is really hard to not just want to not like this guy, just because of his description. After all of the things he has done are revealed, now comes the Puritan side, the part about how god decided to smite the young man for all of his misdeeds. There could have been no way that he was sick before, it just had to be god, obviously.

I would also like to point out how even though the Puritan’s writing was bland, they did not lack all literary devices. In this short entry, he uses irony when the young man makes fun of the poor people for getting sick, and how he wants to throw them overboard, and he himself gets sick and thrown overboard.

Bradford, William. Of Plymouth Plantation. Ed. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm. Glencoe Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill, 2009. 65. Print