A Principle to Keep

A principle that I believe should be kept is to put the needs of those that you love the most before your own. You can "love" your dog, a clothing store, that new phone you got for your birthday, and the list goes on and on. That's not the type of love I'm talking about. I'm talking about that sense of everlasting love that you feel, for instance, let's say your mother. The majority of people can say that they love their mom, the woman who gave birth to them (and in many cases) raised them to be the person that they are today. This is the type of love that allows one to do a crazy things that they wouldn't be able to do on a daily basis. This type of love is displayed in "The Road". The Man truly loves his son. He stated earlier in the book that his son was his driving force for living and he'd do anything to protect him. I can think of a few people that I truly love and I would go to the ends of the earth just to make sure that they were safe and happy. It may sound cheesy or cliché, but I just personally believe that it's a principle that we should all live by.

Janie

Janie Crawford

If there are three words that definitely define Janie, they are lovesick, impulsive, and self-evolved.

If nothing else, Janie is lovesick. Her life goal is to find the perfect husband and to experience true love. The whole story so far is about her dealing with her horrible choices of husbands. 

So far throughout the past twelve chapters of "Their Eyes Were Watching God", Janie has been very impulsive when it came to her making huge decisions. For example, she left Logan and married Joe within two months of meeting him.

Janie is self-evolved as she finds herself throughout the book. Her definition of the perfect husband actually evolves. Before she got married for the first time, she could only set her guidelines based off of what her grandmother suggested. First, all she wants is someone who's just rich and can support her. Second, it's someone who's attractive, ambitious, and who won't overwork her with strenuous labor. Also, I kind of feel like she was just looking for anyone to take her away from Logan. After her horrible experience with Joe, she wants someone who believes in the equality of women (such as Vergible Woods, better known as "Tea Cake").

What I'm Thankful For

I'm thankful for Kat and Safiyah for always making me laugh in English, and for also being the best group partners ever. Kat and I have two classes together and she has me dead in both of them EVERY SINGLE DAY so shout out to her. Safiyah makes me laugh a lot too, but I love how we share the struggle of answering questions in class. We seriously always have each other ready to bust out laughing whenever we're picked on. I love her for that so shoutout to her Safiyah too. To be completely honest, I was kind of worried that I wouldn't really be actual friends with anyone in this class, but they proved me wrong. So yeah, thanks for my mains. 😊

I'm thankful for Cuji because he picked up my pen that one time and he also gave me a book. I definitely didn't feel like getting out of my seat to pick it up so I was just gonna be down a pen for the rest of my life. I'm also thankful for Dijzhane and Yareli. You guys are amazing and Yareli, your dye is on point 👌👌. I'm thankful for Lydia because she was a really chill group partner and her eyebrows inspire me to make mine better lol (no lie). Last but not least, I'm thankful for Mr. McCarthy for being really awesome and flexible, and just teaching us a lot.

Hemingway

Three words that I would use to describe Hemingway's stories are timeless, effortless, intriguing, and entertaining. I feel as if it would be both ironic and inappropriate to write a long-winded blog entry about Hemingway's stories because he was so talented when it came to keeping his thoughts brief concise, so I'm going to keep it short. I have to admit that my favorite short stories in his collection were The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber and A Clean Well-Lighted Place because of how he constantly thought out of the box and forced the reader to think about all of the messages in between the lines with his Iceberg Theory.

Six Six-Word Stories

The kite was carried by the wind.

Balls of fire crossed the sky.

Jerry’s life flashed before his eyes.

Mother wept driving to the hospital.

The orange-stickered limos filled the streets.

She saw Jerry’s picture and cried.

John Proctor: Hero or Stooge?

What exactly is a "hero"? Everyone has their own variation of the definition. Heroes do not have to be extraordinary creatures with superhuman powers. In reality, heroes appear in everyday life. My personal definition of a hero is a generally courageous person who is willing to make sacrifices for the greater good of the people around them. In Act IV of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, John Proctor decides to not confess to witchcraft, even though he understands that doing so will lead to his hanging. This makes him a martyr. By doing this, he show others that it is dishonorable to throw others under the bus for an act that they do not commit. On page 1356, Proctor proclaims the wrongdoings of many of those accused with the lines “I have three children — how may I teach them to walk like men in the world, and I sold my friends,” and “…I blacken all of them when [my confession] is nailed to the church the very day they hang from silence”. According to Arthur Miller’s perception of the Salem Witch Trials, everyone that is accused of witchcraft simply blames anyone against whom they have a vendetta. This causes the panic and dishonesty within the town. By choosing the opposing option to not wrongfully accusing anyone else, John Proctor keeps his integrity and proves that sometimes it is worth doing the right thing, even if the benefits of having ethical values hide behind severe consequences.

There Goes the Neighborhood

Today, we came across people from a distant land. They have skin the hue of clouds and speak a language that is clearly from far away. It is important that we carry honor and show hospitality because we never know what the future may bring. They seem very powerful, as they have many advanced weapons and boats. In a sense, they appear to be Godlike. Hopefully, the Europeans will recognize our kindness, and we might be able to establish a trading system. If we can maintain some of their weaponry, we might be able to defeat our enemy tribes in wars for years to come. Hopefully, they will also aid us in building our civilization and vice versa. Sure, it is possible that these odd people may have ill intentions, but that might be a risk that we, as a civilization, may have to take: by killing them, we could pass up multiple possibilities that could help us progress in the future.

———A few years later———

Here is a tip for the next people that come across Europeans: fight them or run. Accepting these monsters into our community was possibly the biggest mistake we have ever made in our tribe’s history. We have lost many of our tribe due to an epidemic, 36 in the last year and almost a quarter of that in the last two months. We have to take initiative and assume that it has something to do with the Europeans. Life was fine until they came. They were friendly for the first month or so, but they quickly started to disrespect nature and our culture despite our complaints. They have completely taken over our lives, even forcing us to convert to Christianity! Even worse, they treat us as if we are inferior servants. There is no point in revolting, as they are too powerful and authoritative. Bringing them in was not the best idea. Perhaps we should have tried to kill them when we had the chance.

Centuries ago, Native Americans were experiencing many of the negative aspects of cultural diffusion. A modern example of an unfortunate clash of cultural diffusion is the ISIS, or Islamic State in Iraq and al-Sham, conflict in the Middle East. One of ISIS’s main missions is to destroy the Iraqi government. This jihadist militant group is massacring mass numbers of people at once just because of clashing political views.