We always end up disscussing movies in english class. I  dont really watch many movies that people would consider there top ten favorites. I couldn't name ten favorite movies, but i have a few that I really like. In no particular order I like Elf, Space Jam, the Harry Potter Series (excluding #6), Step Up 3D, Iron Man, Mall Cop, Forest Gump, and Shrek!  I love Mall Cop mostly because of the riding on the scooter and when he plays guitar hero. I think Kevin James was super funny in it. My favorite part was when Paul Blart gets in a fight with a grandma in Victoria's Secret. Speaking of action, Iron Man was also very good as well. Robert Downey Jr. is an amazing actor. I thought it was extreamly disgusting when he had to replace the machine that kept him alive.
        The entire Harry Potter series is probably somewhere at the top of my list of favorite movies. I could probably watch them over and over again with out getting sick of them. I love the british accents that they have because it reminds me of Jay Seam who is mu favorite singer and has a british accent. I also think Forest Gump is a funny movie. Many people don't think it's supposed to be funny, but some parts are histerical, like when he says Jenny. Love it. Shrek is also wicked funny. Especially donkey, probably one of my all time favortie animated characters.
        Going back quite a few years, my favorite movie as i was growing up was Space Jam. When i was younger, I couldn't comprehend how they got cartoons in a real life setting. It amazed me. I was in love with Micheal Jordan, so that perhaps could be a reason why I was so in love with Space Jam. I saw Step Up 3D over the summer and it somewhat reminds me of Space Jam with all the cool affects. From all the movies I have seen this year I'd have to say that Step Up 3D was my favorite. Moose was such an amazing dancer and I love the songs from the movie. There was this one guy who does the robot extremly well and I wish I could do the same exact thing.

       Many different themes are shown in The Death of a Salesmen. Three themes that stick out to me are cheating, things falling apart and time. Cheating is shown when Willy is speaking to his wife, Linda, about how much he made and goes to a flash back of him and his secretary. He gives his secretary new stockings. When he recovers from his flashback, he relizes Linda is stitching her old ones and takes them from her and throws them away. Willy relizes that he is already broke and that instead of saving his money, he is spending it on his mistress while his wife needs stockings. He hates the fact that his wife needs to use her old stockings.
      Things falling apart is probably the most prominent theme in the book so far. Right in the begining of the book Willy returns home from his not so successful trip to New England. He blames his car for not working properly. If his car breaks down how is he going to make money? He's not! This is a reflection of his life in a way. He's becoming old and running out of fuel. As he gets older, it's going to become more and more difficult for him to make a living and support his family. He also won't be able to fulfill his dream about becoming rich and successful like his older brother.
       Time is also a significant theme in the book. When Willy has his flahback of his brother coming home, Ben says that he only has a few minutes to visit. We aren't sure if Ben actually said this or if it is just a misconception on WIlly's part, but it means a lot to Willy. Ben saying that he onyl has a few minutes could be Willy thinking to himself that he doesn't have much time to live up to Ben's "legacy". Willy is getting old and really hoped to become filthy rich by now. This hasn't happened so far and it seems as if his dreams of his boys becoming filthy rich won't come true either.
     

     In The Death of a Salesmen, Willy is always worried about his kids. When Biff and Happy are kids, Willy tries to teach them that they should try to be the best they can possibly be. Having Biff staying at home when he's in his 30's doesn't really make Willy all that excited. Willy had different thought of the two boys when they were young. He wanted them to be salesmen as he is. When Ben came to visit, Willy tried to show his sons off at how obidient they are. He always felt the need to show off his "amazing" sons.
     It is good for a dad to support their kids as they grow up. It helps them build confidence. It was nice of Willy to show support of his sons as they were matureing, but that is not always a good thing. For example, when Biff took the football, Willy was fine with it an told him that it was a good thing his coach didn't get mad at him, that means his coach likes him. Stealing is not something you would encourage your children to do under most circumstances. Willy should find a way to support and encourage his sons without making it seem like he wants them to do something bad.
    Willy seems to not be able to make up his mind in the book. When he says that Biff is lazy and then says that he is not makes it seem like he feels bad as a father to be mean to his son. When Willy says that his chevvy is amazing and then says its bad, just makes Willy seem like he's losing his mind. He can't seem to agree with himself with anything and that worries his family becasue they think he is going crazy.
     When Willy contradicts himself, Linda seems to agree with whatever he says. She doesn't think that it's wierd at all that he can't make up his mind. Apparently she loves him way to much. I think that if she doesn't tell Willy that he's acting weird, he won't know and won't be able to fix whatever it is that is making him do that. If Linda told him that he was contradicting himself, then maybe he could go to the doctors and see if he is mentally stable or if he has some disease of some sort. Willy's family should take him out of his imaginary world and tell him what hes been acting like.

     This week in class we finished up The Scarlet Letter. I personally wasn't really a fan of the way it ended. I think how Hawthorne makes all the characters just die, isn't very clever. For such a "negative" book, there should have atleast been a happy ending. If not a happy ending, it should have been more interesting, in my opinon. There were so many places the story could have gone. I thought Chillingworth should have died and Hester, Pearl and Dimmesdale should have escaped to England because they already recieved punishment for their sins.
      We also watched the movie. It was SO bad. Not gonna lie, the acting was horrible and so was the movie in general. It was interesting to see how different the movie was from the way I pictured it from reading. I pictured the scaffold to be a lot more roomier than it was shown in the movie. Chillingworth was depicted a lot more uglier than I thought he would be. The jail was not as I pictured it either. I thought the jail would be like an actual jail but smaller and with grey brick walls or something. Pearl wasn't as annoying as the book showed her to be. She didn't really do anything in the movie that made her seem like the devil's child.
     Hester's eyes in the movie were so creepy! I understand that they were trying to single her out from the rest of the townspeople because she was supposed to be beautiful, but the contacts just made her seem scary. They looked so fake. She seemed depressed throughout the movie. From reading the book I pictured her to be more lively after the scaffold scene. She just wasn't happy as the book made her seem when she was doing charity work and whatnot. The Scarlet Letter was not the best book I have read, but it wasn't to bad either. I guess since the book is so popular, I expected it to be a lot more interesting.

      This week in class we talked about the Scarlet Letter. We read most of the book and talked in depth of Hester's scarlet letter. So far in the book Pearl, Hester's daughter, has been having major issues according to her mother. She really wants to know who her father is, but Hester doesn't think it's a good idea to tell her that at such a young age. Pearl also asks Hester about the scarlet letter that she wears around all day. Hester wears it due to the sin of adultrey that she commited with Dimmsdale. She hesitates to tell this to Pearl, thinking that she is young and not mature enough to handle the fact.
     Pearl's bad behavior towards the world and especially her mother, worries Hester. Hester worries that when Pearl grows older she might commit the same sin. Pearl seems like a rebellious child also and it's hard to think that she may not also commit the same sin. Hester hesistates to let Pearl know who her real father is. It seems as though she already knows when they all are standing on the scaffold and Pearl asks Dimmsdale if he will stand on the scaffold with them next time. Dimmsdale says he can't and Pearl becomes upset.
     Hester and Dimmsdale decide that they will take a boat back to England and live as a complete family. This is when Hester  finds it appropriate to inform Pearl on who her real father is. I personally think Hester should have told Pearl when she was younger, or when she matures enough to understand. I think this because at the stage of her life she's at now, Pearl feels the need to act up and do things that she is not supposed to do. Knowing that her mother has commited the sin of adultrey, may cause Pearl to also commit the same sin. This is why I think it would be better for Hester to have told Pearl who her father was at a safer time.

      This week in class we had a debate about whether or not the swastika displayed in the library window was right for school. The class, overall, believed that the swastika should not have been displayed for many reasons. I also agree with the class. I personally don't think a swastika should be displayed publically because it avoks many different emotions in people.
      I don't think it is wrong to display symbols, but it is the way it is displayed. In our library, the first thing that a person would see when walking by is the swastika. It's huge, and the gay pride symbol is hiding behind it and barely noticible. I am not jewish, but I understand why jews in our school would feel hurt with it up there. Other symbols that are displayed in public don't symbolize millions of people getting murdered. The swastika could bring back memories of relatives that may have been killed by the nazi's. Mr. Bresnick had a similar experience where the swastika brought back memories of realtives that were also killed during the holocaust.
     Some people think that it's freedom of speech and anything they want can be displayed. Sure people can display what they want, but they need to think it through. If what your doing is going to hurt someone or is negative, then it shouldn't be allowed to be publically displayed. People do have the right do say/ do what they want, but having such a strong symbol like the swastica openly diplayed in a public school just doesn't seem right.
     Most likely everyone knows what the holocaust was or what the swastika symbloizes. Our school knows that the reason it is up there is to show how gays were not openly excepted during the holocaust and were singled out and also killed. Other people that come into the school may not know the reason behind putting up a huge swastika, and think other whys about how our school functions. I personally think it doesn't lokk good in a public school and should be diplayed in a different manner.

The Crucible Book vs. Movie

            This week in class we talked in depth more about The Crucible and also watched the movie. I personally thought the movie was better then the book. There are many reasons for this. I think the book was very compact and there were so many ideas and events taking place rapidly. It was hard to keep up with all that was going on. The book was also very short. Not that I wish the book was longer, but I feel that the ending was not as great as i would have hoped. Maybe a little about how the accused witches went about getting themselves out of this mess.
         I also believe the movies are always better then the book. Maybe it's just the fact that I rather have a visual about what is going on. I feel that the book didn't really do much justice to the characters either. The whole scene in the woods wasn't even described as much in the book, so i thought of it as the girls just chilling in the woods around the fire. In the movie, that scene was way more intence... and awkward, but it was definitly better then the book. The characters from the book, in my mind, seemed dull and not fully built up. For example, Abigail seemed like a quite girl who randomly got the desire to fight for what she wanted. In the movie, she seemed like a total jerk who always got what she wanted. The way she threatened those girls to keep their mouths shut definitly showed her bad side.
       The book was kind of hard to comprehend becasue they spoke old english. I'm not a big fan of books where old english is spoken because then you kind of lose the whole jist of the story. We didn't get to finish the movie yet in class, but I would really like to finish it though. I want to know if the book is diffrent from the movie, like if the girls get caught lying. Also, if the towns people listen to John Proctor and release all the accused witches. In the movie, they didn't say that they killed any of the accused witches up till where we watched. Both the book and the movie were great, but I personally liked the movie better.

This week in class we talked about different themes in The Crucible. Man vs. Nature is a huge theme in this book. The puritans think that the woods are basically the devil. If anyone goes in there, then they will be possessed by the devil, making them evil and a "witch". The puritans vs. the woods causes major conflict between everyone in the village. They believe the girls that went in to the woods were possesed by witches and the rest of the town is hunting people down to figure out if they are witches.
I personally agree with the puritans. The woods in my oppinion could not have possibly been considered or at all be the devil. First of all because the girls that went into the woods were lying about the witches to save their own behind. Also because there are woods everywhere. People go into the woods all the time. Just becuase the woods are kind of creepy, actually they are super creepy, doesn't mean they are evil. I definatly dissagree with the puritans.
Also, back then I feel people just agreed with what they were told or what they wanted to believe. They didn't really think things through logically. But then again they weren't as advanced as we might be now. Not saying that people now don't believe in ghosts and stuff because I guess i kind of do. I get very creeped out by scary movies about ghosts and what not. The puritans were probably right to believe the things they did at that time period, but I would not agree with them and the crimes they commited maybe because i don't fully understand how society worked back then.

Puritans in Framingham

         A lot of what we talked about in class tied back to the puritans. They were here from England, as well as the pilgrims that came over. There are many differences between these two groups. Although they both were from the same place, they had very different principles and beliefes in life. The pilgrims came over to Massachusetts because they didn't want thier children to become corrupted by the English government. The puritans decided to come over because they wanted a utopian ideal of pure religion.
       It is very interesting how both the puritans and pilgrims settled in massachusetts. More then that, it's cool that the puritans were from framingham. Because of these puritans, framingham was the end point of the Salem witch trials. The acussed witches fled salem to framingham and the trail they followed was later called Salem end road.
      Speaking of Salem, every year during halloween the town has a huge treat-or-treat fest. I haven't gone yet, but I would really love to some day. I think it is pretty ironic how they make halloween such a big night because the purtians thought it was not right to be witches or "have powers". Not saying that the puritans were completly bad people, but it was pretty messed up what they did to people that they thought had magical powers. I think the witch trials were very unjust and all it ended up doing was killing people unconditionally.

Puritanssss

            In English class we were given a chapter of The American Dream to read. I don't know much about the Puritans, but from what I leaerned, they don't seem to be liked very much. The author writes about the reasons the Puritans are not liked as much as many of the other immigrants that settled in America. He says that Puritans are "widley regarded as very unpleasent people". He also talks about how the Puritans massacred Native Americans and that puritanism was based on wanting other peoples fear.
           The author describes Puritans as very unkind and unpleasent people. I, however, don't agree with this. The Pruitans weren't the only that killed people in masses after coming to the United States. The British sold disease- riddled blanckets to the Native Americans. Genocide was practiced quite often in the European society. Apperently they believed they were better than everyone else, but thats not a reason to hate on someone to such an extent. Compition is what makes encourages people to try hard in life. I think its unjust to say that the Puritans deserved such a bad name.
           The American Dream, in my opinion, is basically lived by anyone that immigrated or is a citizen of the United States. Just like these people, the Puritans also came to America with a dream. They wanted to disipline the people about the Anglo-American Church and wanted people to follow them. Although many people come with a dream , the Puritan dream was a very strange and powerful one. There were many consequences and most of them accidental. Maybe if they didnt try as hard to achieve their dream, then they wouldn't of been thought of as bad people and things would of been different for them.

American Dream

       Well since the American Dream can't really be defined, I believe my family is living what we call the american dream. We all get a good education compared to the rest of the world. Many people around the world do not have the oppertunity to get an education, or are not aloud to. In some countries females aren't aloud to go to school. Luckly in american we get that oppertunity.
        Another reason I believe my family is living the american dream is because we own property. We have a house with a big yard. My dad owns the house which makes it better becasue we don't need to pay anyone rent. I guess owning property is a big thing since that is what all the immagrints from way back in the wanted to do. Many people in america still do not have the oppertunity to own their own home for many reasons, such as the economy.
        We are also living the american dream because we have the capability to follow our dreams and be what ever we want to be. Me and my siblings are given a good oppertunity to go to school and further our education, so we can get into college. Very few people are living their american dream already because they have the money and the fame that most people try to aquire. Basically, the american dream is to just follow what you believe. Anything is possible if you try.

Food Network :)

        Chopped, on Food Network, is a wicked good show. Basically, there are four chefs who battle each other until there is an ultimate winner. Each chef that advances, has to prepare a meal for the panel of judges. The first dish is an appatizer, the second is a main course and the third is a dessert, my favorite. The winner recieves a grand prize of $10,000.
       Another great show is cupcake wars. I read in a magazine that it was one of the most popular show of the summer. It's interesting to watch how the bakers made unique cupcakes out of unusual ingredients that you wouldn't expect in an average cupcake. The final challenge is the best because each baker needs to make one million cupcakes. The winner gets their cupcakes displayed at an event.
       I think food network should make more competative shows rather then the home cooking ones. I don't think anyone actaully watches them and decides to cook the food they're making on tv. I think viewers would rather watch a compition because it is more intense. The Next Food Network Star is a good example of a competitive cooking show. Its interesting and its fun to see who gets eliminated each week.