Harrison Bergeron

This story was very interesting. It really made you think about what the future might actually be like. The author had an intriguing way of showing his thoughts on the future. In the story, the government made everyone have the same mentality level. Their main point was to try to make everyone equal and would do whatever is humanly possible to be able to achieve this task. One way of doing this was by putting this special hearing aid in the “above average mentality group”. About every twenty seconds or so, it would make a sound. Whatever the person was thinking about at the time would be washed out of their brains in an instant. This way, no one could think about a certain subject for a long period of time. The way the story goes is something like this: there was a family with an “above average mentality” child , with a somewhat “smart” mentality, a really dumb mother named Hazel, and a somewhat smart dad. Because the dad was so big and strong, the government had to put weights on him. He would have to wear a bag filled with led balls to make him move slower. The son, Harrison Bergeron, was so “smart” that he had to be taken away. On the news, he was described as “extremely dangerous”. There were also dancers with masked faces and body weights to make them equal as well. None of them were that good because of these weights, but there was one special girl that was obviously better than the rest no matter what the government did to try and disable her. Harrison knew that was was going on was wrong. So, he stood up and called himself the emperor and ordered everyone to take off all of their gear. Everyone was hesitant, but did it anyways. He went one by one and ripped off their disability devices. He stated that he wanted a wife and told the dancers that whoever took their mask off first would be his. The girl that was the best dancer took off her mask and revealed her amazingly beautiful face. Harrison then ordered the musicians to play their best and ordered the dancer to dance her best, which was clearly against the law. Harrison took the dancer and started leaping around the room. The head person in charge of the government saw this chaos and shot both Harrison and the dancer to death for disobeying the law. Harrison’s mother, Hazel and his father both saw this happen. They were shocked and depressed in the moment it happened, but couldn’t remember why they were crying a few seconds later. This made me very upset because people should be able to do their best and achieve what they want to achieve. This story wouldn’t let anyone do that and in my point of view, it wasn’t fair at all. 

My Favorite Villain

My favorite villain of all time is Ursula from the Little Mermaid. She is sneaky, manipulative, and evil all at the same time. She gives people what they want, but in return steals their voices. Ursula is the witch of the sea and takes advantage of everyone she meets. She tells people that she will give them anything and everything that they have ever wanted. The only catch is that they have to give her their voice and if they don’t achieve their goal, she turns them into these little weed things and she has a garden of them in her cave. Ursula is half woman, half octopus. She has short white hair, a pretty chubby body, and eight legs like an octopus. She knows all of these special potions that can easily ruin someone’s life. Ursula is such an evil lady because she takes away peoples innocent lives for no reason at all! She has an evil sense of humor as well. Ursula is definitely one of the most evil villains in all of Disney history. 

Lord of the Flies: Jack's Way of Doing Things

Everything in human society runs risks. Whether it’s the government, lose of education, or anything that people do in general. In Lord of the Flies, the author really uses his imagination in creating these characters and creating the events that happen on the island. Jack’s fierce system of violence, punishment, and superiority is not always the right way to go. But the majority of the boys choose Jack because they are afraid to choose any other way of “government”. Jack has pretty much tricked the boys into becoming so afraid of him, that they will virtually do anything so they are not harmed in any way. The boys are also very young and have not really learned what is completely right and what is completely wrong. They easily give into peer pressure as well which gives Jack a huge advantage. All the older boys seem to see Jack as a higher power and basically worship the way he does things. In my opinion, the younger boys probably would like to be with Ralph’s fair and cooperative system, but are peer pressured into going with Jack. I know that if I was as young as they were I personally would not want to be in danger of being punished or beaten for every little thing that I do, or don’t do. In their situation though, the only way of survival is being savage and harsh. Jack’s way of doing things will most likely get you farther on the island and will probably help you survive for a longer time. That is if you don’t get a rock purposely thrown on you or you don’t get killed for trying to tell everyone that the “beast” really isn’t a beast at all. In the end, Ralph has a more systematic way of doing things and Jack is more savage. It all depends on how you look at things. 

Can We Trust People to be Good?

Not everyone is a good person, but everyone person has something good inside of them. Most people are generally good on the outside and they are capable of showing that. But there are also some people who can’t really do what is always right. Not everyone has the natural instinct to do the best that they can possible do. Most people in the world are born with the thought to do right and are raised that way as well. But for others that is very hard to do. I think that people in general are just strange. We have all of these unnecessary feelings and thoughts that are not important what so ever. If people just cooperated in life then everything else would easily fall into place. There would not be any crimes committed or wars to worry about. But that is only in a non-existent perfect world. Nothing like that will ever happen because people are just too stubborn to do something that is not part of their everyday routine. People are not always good but I personally think that every person in this world has a little bit of good in them. It is just a natural trait that you are born with that not everyone is able to understand. In bad situations I think people are put under too much pressure and can’t really make up their mind completely. That’s why that in hard situations not every decision made is the one that will help the group out the best. In general, every one is capable of doing good, but not everyone chooses to. 

The Prisoner's Dilemma Game

The Prisoner’s Dilemma game showed who can work together, and who can’t. My partner and I did really well in the first round but terrible in the second round. At first, our strategy was to say that we will both confess, so we each get one point. At the last second we would changed our answer to deny so that we get plus two points, and the other team gets minus two points. It worked very well at first because no one knew that we were going to screw them over. In the second round though, everyone screwed us over because they knew our strategy even though we decided to be honest and keep our word. Our knew strategy was to say that the other team would confess and we deny, so we got minus two points and they got plus two points. But again, at the last second we would change our answer to confess as well so we both got one point. No one believed that we would our promise because we screwed them over in the first round. We ended up both getting minus two because everyone thought that we were lying again. After the game ended, I thought that we should have just cooperated so everyone gets at least on point each. Another good idea though was to be honest in the first round, and then screw everyone in the second round because people would think that we were honest, but we were not really going to be. Maria and I would have dominated if we did what we decided to do after the game was over. In the end, everyone should just cooperate. That way every person gets something. In the Lord of the Flies I think they should cooperate also. Everyone would hopefully get along so something would get accomplished on that island. 

Poem Review

Poem Review

Last week I read and memorized a beautiful poem by Christina Rossetti:

A Birthday

My heart is like a singing bird

                  Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;

My heart is like an apple-tree

                  Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;

My heart is like a rainbow shell

                  That paddles in a halcyon sea;

My heart is gladder than all these

                  Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;

                  Hang it with vair and purple dyes;

Carve it in doves and pomegranates,

                  And peacocks with a hundred eyes;

Work it in gold and silver grapes,

                  In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;

Because the birthday of my life

                  Is come, my love is come to me.

In this poem, Christina Rossetti used such clever rhymes to describe how she felt about this one certain birthday. She used very descriptive words and used them in such an incredible way. I felt really accomplished after I memorized this poem because I feel that this poem really comes from the heart and it shows how someone feels about someone or something else. This poem can be interpreted in many ways as well and that is what I find most interesting. It makes me really think and wonder how her heart is connected to all of the ways she is describing it. A Birthday is a very happy poem and it kind of reminds me about all the beautiful things she is mentioning in the poem. It makes me actually notice how pretty and happy the singing bird is and how intricate the apple tree is with its “boughs bent with thickest fruit.” She also mentions that her love has come to her, so she might have been talking about someone she loved coming to one of her birthdays. This poem has so many interesting parts and now I am more willing to read more of Christina Rossetti’s work. 

HOLIDAYS!!

I love the holiday seasons. Everything is so happy and bright and colorful. I love seeing all the Christmas lights on everyone’s houses and the wreaths on everyone’s doors. I love spending time with all my family and friends as well. But my favorite part is obviously getting gifts from everyone. Whether it’s from a secret Santa or one of your family members or best friends, presents are always a plus to every holiday. Every Christmas Eve my family gets together at either my aunt’s house or my grandma’s house for dinner and everything. Christmas is usually the only time I get to see some of my family members so its kind of a nice thing to be able to see everyone. And also everyone has to bring one gift and we do that Chinese exchange game. Every person brings in a present and you get a number and you go in order and pick a present. Anyone can steal your present for them self or pick a new one.  We also try and go to our house in North Carolina as much as possible and around the holidays is a great time to go. There is fresh, white snow spread all over the ground and because we live in Florida, I love being able to see all the snow. Another thing my family and I do is sledding. Our house is on a huge mountain so we can sled down and it is such a blast. I love being able to do all of the winter things that we cannot normally do in the hot and humid south Florida weather. I honestly wish that Christmas was all year round. It would be so much better.