Job Shadowing!

For my job shadowing I went to H&R Marketing Company. The main person we were going to talk to was the CEO Wally Hamlin. We went from one o'clock to four o'clock, which I wish could have been longer! 
The experience for me was FANTASTIC.  When we first go their we were introduced to Wally and his VP.  Wally then left and we talked with the VP for a little bit and she gave us a very good overview of the company and what we will be doing. After that she split all four of us up into two groups of two; Mackenzie and I and Melissa and Kirstyn. Mackenzie and I went with Connie first, who was the project leader of the company.  She was the person who was in charge of dealing with a lot of the customers and finding out how they want to be advertised.  First, she learns their business and exactly what they do.  She explained to us that this was important because you can't accurately make a good marketing plan without knowing the company.  Then the women went onto saying that next she develops a budget and general outline of what the company wants.  The idea that they build an entire plan for someones individual company is awesome to me! This is a great way to make a living in my opinion!
She then set us up with a job she was working on which was  tabletop pop up display and actually let us design it! Which was awesome and a great experience for me! We then got to take our design to the actual graphic designer (Stacey) who made our pop up! She actually printed it out and Connie is going to use it, but with her own edits of course :)
All in all the experience was wonderful and basically made me finalize what I want to do for the rest of my life.  I absolutely loved the what Connie did and would want to do her job, which made this experience very worth it and influential to me. I am very grateful  for the opportunity and that Wally Harmin allowed us to be in his building and learn from his employees.

Modernism Project

Journal 30- Favorite Whitman Poem

My favorite Whitman poem isn't exactly one of the most popular poems. My favorite is Old War Dreams. I have three main reasons on why this is my favorite poem.
The first reason is that it has a line of repetition which I really like in poetry. This technique helps me to realize how important the statement is. The repeated line is "I dream, I dream, I dream" (Whitman)which is repeated three times, once at the end of every stanza. This to me shows how each stanza is something that he dreams. This is why the title begins to make sense because it talks about dreams.
The second reason I like it is because he talks about a mans story in the war. I like poems that have a realistic background because it makes it more relate-able to people. Although I can not relate to being in the army I can have a better understanding of the content in the poem because it is something that is real.
Lastly I like the poem because it involves nature. Nature is used a lot in Whitman's poetry because he felt a very large connection with nature. This is why I am a big fan of Whitman because he involves nature into a lot of his poems. This gives me a better visual when I read his poetry. This makes me want to continue reading because I have a hindrance that when I read things I need to be able to visualize what the story is actually saying.
This poem combines all the things that I like in my readings and poetry as well as just a good story line. Without these key things I would not have picked this poem to be my favorite of Whitman.




Whitman, Walt. "The Walt Whitman Archive." OLD WAR-DREAMS. (Leaves of Grass [1891-1892]) -. Web. 18 Apr. 2012. .

Chanting The Square Deific

This is a reflection over "Chanting The Square Deific" by Walt Whitman. This is going to be analyze just the title itself for it has a lot of meaning to it. The first word which is "Chanting" means to shout or express loudly while a deific means divine or godlike. The mixture of the two means that Walt Whitman is showing the divine and Godlike qualities in something. In the first section of the poem he describes and refers to the square saying, "Out of the old and new, out of the square entirely divine,; Solid, four-sided, (all the sides needed,) from this side Jehovah; am I, " (Whitman) Here he explains the square as the whole and complete idea of the deific by saying it is a solid thing in which all pieces are needed. This refers to humans in a sense because humans are all much like a this because humans all have things that humans must have and without all the pieces humans may not survive. This would then make humans not complete.

In the first section he begins to describe himself but it isn't until the second section that he really begins to explain himself. He says he is affection and hope bringing, meaning is the brings happiness and purpose to those around him. He then goes on to say something that catches many eyes because of its shocking and blunt nature. This quote from the poem is, "Young and strong I pass knowing well I am destin'd myself to an; early death; ". This is very much an intense statement that definitely is a statement on how he sees himself and on what Whitman believes. Going on to say that although he will die the things he did in life will live on, little did he know that that was probably more true than he could have ever imagined.

In the third part it goes into a darker more demented state of mind, showing that Whitman felt he himself had a dark side. For example he says, "Defiant, I, Satan, still live, still utter words, in new lands duly; appearing, (and old ones also,)" (Whitman) He shows his dark side that is more demented and dark. This is not shown in the upper parts of the poem. At last he wraps in up bringing together the happier and the demented parts giving his whole personality in one final wrap up. This is used in many Whitman poems because he was such a spiritual man. A literary critic describes him by saying, "Whitman can never be classed, as Spinoza was by Schleiermacher, among "God-intoxicated" men; but he was early inebriated with two potent draughts—himself and his country" (Higginson)

Higginson, Thomas Wentworth. "Whitman." Contemporaries, 1899: 79–84. Quoted as "On the Poetry of Walt Whitman" in Bloom, Harold, ed. Walt Whitman, Classic Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CCVWaW047&SingleRecord=True (accessed April 3, 2012).



Whitman, Walt. "The Walt Whitman Archive." CHANTING THE SQUARE DEIFIC. (Leaves of Grass [1891-1892]) -. Creative Commons License. Web. 03 Apr. 2012. .

Self

Who am I? This is a question I ask myself about everyday and wonder what the answer may be. I don't know a definite answer yet for multiple reasons. The first reason is that I am not old enough to be able to give a definitive answer on who I am because I am not done becoming who I am going to be. In any time of life it is hard to give a definite answer because we are constantly changing and can't give make a completely true statement of who I am. There are some things that I do know though for sure of. My name is Kirsten Amber Foley. My biological mother and father are Jennifer Drennan/Rahn and Darrin Foley. I consider my parents to be my mother Jennifer and my step-father Chris Rahn. I have one older brother whose name is Darrin Mathew Foley Jr.. I also have a half brother, William Christopher Rahn. DJ is 19 and William is 5 years old. I on the other hand am seventeen years old and my birthday is October 10. I have been in and done many things in my life. I went to Virden Elementary School from pre-school to fifth grade. I was involved in flag football, cheerleading camps, and volley ball camps. I moved to Pleasant Plains the summer before my fifth grade year and I began going to Pleasant Plains Middle School. I was in volleyball until eighth grade, cheerleading from seventh to eighth grade, and Beta Club. I am now attending Pleasant Plains high school. I am in cheerleading, Beta Club, Science Club, Spirit Club, Operation Teen Safe Driving, and was in soccer my sophomore year. These are definite things in my life that I think have made me who I am today. These are the things that have made me have the personality and character I have. I don't know exactly how to explain my personality except by saying what I have been told by others. I have been told I am very outgoing, generally smart, worry to much, friendly, very defensive in what I believe in, and lastly trustworthy. I have been told many times that I could be a therapist because I like to give advise to those who ask for it. This is generally all I know for who I am as of now. This will grow and evolve as my life continues, which may be only a few months from now or many years from now, but whichever that would be I plan to continue to change and grow.

Partner Blog

In Emily Dickinson's poem "The Bee Is Not Afraid of Me" from her Nature series she talks about nature (obviously) and how she sees nature in her eyes. In the second stanza Dickinson says

"The brooks laugh louder when I come,
The breezes madder play." (Dickinson 5-6)

What Dickinson is trying to say is that things are always better and louder and more exciting when you are up close and not far away. The brooks in this poem are louder and bigger up close instead of looking at them without hearing a peep from a good distance away. The same can be applied to many different things in life like take a baseball game for instance. It is better to sit closer to the action than it is to sit in the upper deck at the cardinal game next to a bunch of drunk guys. When your are at an amusement park the rides seem smaller and less intimidating when far away, but when you are at the front of the line looking up at the ride or on top of the ride before the big drop, you are freaking out and about ready to poop your pants because things are scarier up close. Everyone in life experiences this type of effect in their life it is just different for everyone. Roller-coaster's are the thing that are big for me while I could stand up in front of an auditorium filled with people like it was nothing, but for some people it is the other way around.

Emily Dickinson likes to write about things that are going to apply to many readers, making her writing very universal in comparison to other writers such as Thoreau or Hawthorne who seem to have a particular audience that they are writing for. This idea of universal writing is what started her into wanting to write about nature. Nature is something generally everyone can connect with because we are all apart of nature, whether it is just something as simple as a tree or storm in the city to a wild forest or desert in the urban areas. A literary critic says, "Dickinson's love of nature painted a tremendously complex picture as she tried to find in the natural world a firm understanding of the relationship between people and God and the solutions to questions of shape and continuity of the universe that she could find nowhere in her background. "(McShesney) about Emily's poetry. Sandra is saying that Emily used nature and the actions of people to try and make sense of the world we live in and how God plays a part of it. This is a part of the religious aspect of Emily Dickinson's writing that was very evident in many of her poems. Having that Christian faith background is one of the only things that may disconnect her from some readers, although there still are many Non-Christian people who love many of Dickinson's poems. This mixture of nature, human nature, and religion makes Emily Dickinson's poetry so popular and so interesting for those who get the pleasure of reading it.


McChesney, Sandra. "A View from the Window: The Poetry of Emily Dickinson." In Harold Bloom, ed. Emily Dickinson, Bloom's BioCritiques. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 2002. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= BCED03&SingleRecord=True (accessed March 29, 2012).


Dickinson, Emily. "58. "The Bee Is Not Afraid of Me." Part Two: Nature. Dickinson, Emily. 1924. Complete Poems." 58. "The Bee Is Not Afraid of Me." Part Two: Nature. Dickinson, Emily. 1924. Complete Poems. Bartleby. Web. 27 Mar. 2012. .

Dickinson Journal

I am going a blog over the poem "I heard a fly buzz when I died" by Emily Dickinson. The poem itself is about a a person who is dieing and describing what they are feeling in and what they saw right before their final breath. She describes things by comparing it to other things instead of just saying that was literally happening at the time. For example "The stillness round my form ;Was like the stillness in the air ;Between the heaves of storm." (Dickinson) is comparing how dead the room feel to the stillness to the time between storms. This is a upper level skill in writing because it is hard to do comparisons to other completely different things while getting the point you were trying to make across. The poem also brings out emotion in the reader, especially because it is is about death. Emotions in a story is really hard to do successfully because writing about something that is going to get to most of the readers takes a lot of thought. There are things that certain people might connect to while others will. This is something that makes the author have to think about who they are writing too. In this poem Emily found a way to write to everyone because we are all going to die someday and are going to have to deal with death as some point in our lives. She says "Between the light and me; And then the windows failed, and then ;I could not see to see." (Dickinson), which is important because it is when the person finally passes away at the end. This is something that everyone can connect with because they know this is their inevitable fate as a human. There is no cheating death, which is what i believe made this poem so popular.





Dickinson, Emily. "128."I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died." Part Four: Time and Eternity. Dickinson, Emily. 1924. Complete Poems." 128. "I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died."Part Four: Time and Eternity. Dickinson, Emily. 1924. Complete Poems. Bartleby, 2012. Web. 27 Mar. 2012. .

Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace is a song that has been popular for hundreds of years. The song has brought many people together in many ways because it is such a powerful song. This is one reason that this is significant to Emily because she like the idea of bringing people together. Although she was secluded from the world she found it important to bring us together through her works. The story talked about the Lord doing good and Emily being a Christian women find this very important. She believes very much in he Lord and that he is the only one and thing that can save her. This is significant because the song talks about the Lord doing good and promising hope. This hope is what keeps her going in her life of solitude. It talks about being saved which is important to her because she wanted to be saved from her past and the life she once lived before. The song touches a lot of people and can be considered one of the most powerful songs in America's history. The time that this was written was in a time of troubles in America when we needed inspiration and happiness to lift all of our spirits. This could also be significance in Emily Dickinson's life because of how uplifting it is. The idea of being saved and hope was something that everyone was searching for. This was something that many Christians believed in and found important because of the way of life at this time. The song brought them back to God and back to their faith because of the promises it proclaimed that the Lord had made. This could have contributed to Emily's coming back to her faith and to the Lord. The song does have a connection to many but I will personally say that I have little connection to it. The emotions are there but I am not really affected by it because I think the time period is different.

Emily Dickinson Writing Style

Emily Dickinson is one of the writers that died before she could truly see her work become popular. This was a choice made by Emily because she did not want her work to be published. She also was known for staying in her home and not leaving for days because she was not very social. This could be why her writing is like no other authors writing. This could also be where she got her ideas of individualism. The idea of independence and being able to do things on her own was very important seeming as that is how she lived her life. This is what led her into her writing a Modernism like style of writing. This is shown in her poem "This is my letter to the World" because it is about the world seeing her a for who she is and not taking her as a person for granted. This is when the ideas of equality also came into her writing style and made her writing very much modernistic. The literary critic Conrad Aiken said, " When we come to Emily Dickinson's poetry, we find the Emersonian individualism clear enough, but perfectly Miss Dickinson's." (Aiken) about Emily Dickinson's writing style. In the poem she says,' He Message is committed; To hands I cannot see--- For love of her----Sweet---countrymen---Judge tenderly---of Me" (Dickinson) This shows how she believed that people should give her a break for who she is because she is an individual person, and is great in her own way. This greatness also came into her writing style of Realism. Her realistic writing style is displayed very well in her poem "The Lighting is a yellow Fork". The poem displays the ideas of realistic meanings and leaves out literal psychological meanings. The poem says, "Of mansions never quite disclosed; and never quite concealed; The Apparatus of Dark; to ignorance revealed" (Dickinson) This shows how Emily also liked to write realistically instead of always making the reader decipher what the author is trying to say. This making reading a passage easier for everyone. Using both of these styles has lead her to be to be one of the greatest authors of all time. She is particularly interesting to me because although she was not a "normal" person in her time, she was still fantastic. She worked against all odds that she was faced with to make her writing better and more interesting for herself over anyone else. This is why most of her writings became popular after her death because she did not have most of them published. This would also explain why they have no actual titles to most of her poetry because she didn't feel the need to name things that were thought to be for her eyes only. She thought that she didn’t have to keep any titles in place because if they would not have been published it would not have mattered. This is what makes her writing so unique.


Dickinson, Emily "This is my letter to the World." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 533 . Print.
Dickinson, Emily "The lighting is a yellow Fork." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 533 . Print.



Aiken, Conrad. "Emily Dickinson." In A Reviewer's ABC. New York: Meridian Books, 1935. Quoted as "Emily Dickinson" in Harold Bloom, ed. Emily Dickinson, Bloom's Major Poets. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 1998. (Updated 2007.) Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= BMPED04&SingleRecord=True (accessed March 19, 2012).

Walt Whitman Writing Style

The writing style of Walt Whitman is one that cannot be considered Realism nor can it be considered Modernism because his writing as a whole has a combination of both. The Realism period is considered looking at things as they are and not how they "could be". An example of this type of writing from Walt Whitman is "Calvary Crossing a Ford". This is a poem talking about how army men were in the time of war during the day when they were not fighting. The poem is poetic but is realism literacy because it still is very blunt and full of literal meaning. For example, "Behold the brown-faced, each group, each person a picture, the negligent rest on the saddles." (Whitman 1) shows that he is a realistic writer. This a realism literacy because it is a literal meaning and doesn't have a philosophical or symbolic purpose. It is saying that the men are brown faced and the negligent men sit upon their saddles. This is a very simple way of writing in because it doesn't mean that you as a person have to use much thought when reading it. The author though has to use a lot of thought so that they are able to keep the literal meaning while still making the story/poem interesting to the writer. The other type of writing is Modernism, which is about the modern growth in industry and many popular Modernism poems/stories were about the World War 1. Also a huge part of modernism was that the author will write a lot about individualism and the idea of equality. This was the path the Walt Whitman took over the industrial realism part. The story called "from Song of Myself" bleeds the ideas of individualism. The quote "I celebrate myself, and sing myself, and what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you" (Whitman 2) represents the idea of individualism and of being oneself. The idea of celebrating oneself is something that has been carried into today's world a lot and I believe it came from this era of literacy. The literary critic Matt Longabucco has a huge article on Whitman's career in literature. He says, "Much has been made of this design choice of Whitman's, since it seems to announce two important thematic premises of the book: first, that the poet is not separable from his physical body (and therefore his portrait is as valid an identification as his name), and second, that the poet is "one of the roughs," as he puts it, "no stander above men and women or apart from them" (and therefore dressed like the mass of working men and women)." (Longabucca), which is explaining the author, set up his poetry writing style. Longabucca realized that Whitman did have a general set-up to his writings which I have also noticed when reading his poetry. The idea that he is a "tweener" shows that he can neither be considered a modernist or a realist writer.

Whitman, Walt. "Calvary Crossing a Ford." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 533 . Print.

Whitman, Walt. "from song of Myself." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 533 . Print.



Longabucco, Matt. "'The Proof of a Poet'—Walt Whitman and His Critics." In Bloom, Harold, ed. Walt Whitman, Bloom's BioCritiques. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 2002. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= BCWWh03&SingleRecord=True (accessed March 19, 2012).

"I heard a buzz.." Emily Dickinson

I will be doing a blog over "I heard a buzz" by Emily Dickinson. Emily Dickinson is known for hew great number of poems and their popularity that soured after her death. The poem is about how in the death of this person they see a fly. Emily gives a great amount of detail about those few seconds before death seeing the fly. "Talking about those few seconds of life that With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz, Between the light and me; the person had Emily says, " (Dickinson) This shows the how great of an author Emily was. She uses the least amount of actual story but with such great detail, those few seconds can have a thousand words. The author Ralph Waldo Emerson was also very well known for doing this because he would also write things with an exponential amount of detail. This makes both Emily Dickinson and Ralph Emerson some of the most well known authors still today because of how they write, no so much what they write. That is the key to being popular and legendary. Many people can write a great story, poem, or novel. It’s the people whose writing is amazing and legendary in all their works, not just one. I think these two are legendary because they are not popular for just a story or poem; they are legendary for just about all of them together. Another author who has achieved this legendary status is Mr. Henry David Thoreau. All three have made huge strides in literature that continue to be popular today. A literary critic by the name of Randall Huff, whom I have read criticisms before and found him very insightful, said this about her poem; “The startling premise of Emily Dickinson's opening line will not trouble those who believe that one's personality makes up a large part of the soul or is determined by it; thus the immortality promised the soul by church authority and tradition would extend to the personality and perhaps the memory as well. “(Huff) Here is where he explains why some would not find this poem to be troubling or hard for most to read because of how/who the people are reading it. It is almost a good idea to read his criticism before actually reading the poem because he allows the reader to know what mind set to read it from. This is key to reading the legendary Mrs. Emily Dickinson’s poetry.



Dickinson, Emily. "Selected Poems by Emily Dickinson." Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities. Web. 14 Mar. 2012. .

Huff, Randall. "'I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—'." 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. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CPAP0190&SingleRecord=True (accessed March 14, 2012).

To A Stranger

I am doing a reflection over the poem "To A Stranger" by Walt Whitman. First off I would like to start out by saying how truly and undeniably talented Walt Whitman was when it came to writing. His stories are still so popular today because of his way of making a connection with us as the the readers. This is very much so the truth in his poem "To A Stranger". He makes you feel like it truly is you passing this stranger on the street and thinking these things. For example Whitman says, "PASSING stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking" (Whitman) This makes the reader get into the story which is a technique that was used a lot by Ralph Waldo Emerson, which is why Whitman and Emerson's writings have been so closely compared, even in recent years. The poem is about how this person sees a stranger walking down the street but does not feel them to be a stranger. They feel as if they have known the person for forever and will know them forever more into the future. The author does not say a word to the stranger though and even says, "I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone" (Whitman) This gives the story a bit of a mysterious appeal to it. Having this mystery gives the story much more appeal. Although I myself very much enjoy the writing of Whitman, a man named Peter Bayne does not put him in such a fancy light as I would. Reading his criticism over Whitman's poetry, I found him to be rude and almost pushing vulgar brutality. He went as far as saying, "If I ever saw anything in print that deserved to be characterized as atrociously bad, it is the poetry of Walt Whitman" (Bayne) Although I do not share these views, it is important to show that not everyone feels as strongly towards Whitman's poetry as myself.



Bayne, Peter. "Walt Whitman's Poems." Contemporary Review, December 1875: 49–51, 68–69. Quoted as "Walt Whitman's Poems" in Bloom, Harold, ed. Walt Whitman, Classic Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CCVWaW017&SingleRecord=True (accessed March 12, 2012).


Whitman, Walt. "To a Stranger, by Walt Whitman." Poetry Archive. Web. 12 Mar. 2012. .

To Build a Fire

I will be doing a reflection over a story called "To Build Fire" by Jack London. The story was actually written twice by the same author. Each story was basically the same when it came to the plot and general moral. The difference was that the second one was written with nameless characters versus the first one which had names for the main characters. (D'Ammassa). The story is about a man and his dog who are traveling together. The man is inexperienced and not very in touch with nature which is why he himself is faced with so many people. The protagonist of the story made mistake after mistake which got him into situations he was no where near able to get out of. For example in the twelfth paragraph it says "That was why he had shied in such panic. He had felt the give under his feet and heard the crackle of a snow-hidden ice-skin. And to get his feet wet in such a temperature meant trouble and danger." (London) Here London shows how the protagonist isn't very smart about his surrounding and got himself into huge trouble. The idea that there was ice under the snow is something only known to people who are knowledgeable about nature. This is London's way of showing the importance of knowing nature. Thoreau had the same idea because he also wanted the world to know the importance of nature when he wrote "Nature". In the story he shows the beauty of the wild, which I believe is what London is trying to portray through his story as well. He says, "At twelve o'clock the day was at its brightest. Yet the sun was too far south on its winter journey to clear the horizon. The bulge of the earth intervened between it and Henderson Creek, where the man walked under a clear sky at noon and cast no shadow. At half-past twelve, to the minute, he arrived at the forks of the creek. He was pleased at the speed he had made." (London) which shows some of the beauties of nature as well as the struggles of the young man.


London, Jack. "To Build a Fire, by Jack London." The World of Jack London 2012®. The World of Jack London. Web. 12 Mar. 2012. .



D'Ammassa, Don. "'To Build a Fire'." Encyclopedia of Adventure Fiction. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= EAdvF140&SingleRecord=True (accessed March 8, 2012)

Edwin Arlington Robinson

I am going to be doing a reflection over Edwin Arlington Robinson's poem "Miniver Cheevy". The poem itself has a lot of repetition and pattern to it. The poem continuously says repeats "Miniver" then explains him. They explain all the things he loved or disliked in a creative, yet very effective way. The straight forward writing style makes this author very much like Thoreau because he also like to write about things as straight forward as Edwin. Though Edwin does like to use what I would call secretive ways of writing in the poem. For example Edwin writes, "(Robinson) Minever loved the Medici, ;Albeit he had never seen one; He would have sinned incessantly ;Could he have been one." which is insisting that two contradicting this giving the story a lot of range and variety. The poem consistently goes through talking about this one person which insists that the author may have known the person very well, or made him up. This is a lot like Emerson's writings because Emerson was well known for his characters and how realistic and personal all of them were. They all seemed to display different lives and personalities as real people do, making many wonder if some of his characters were really based on real people. A literary critic said, "Like many of Robinson's poems, "Miniver Cheevy" is a character sketch of an emotionally tormented man, but Robinson's use of satire coupled with a playful meter lends the poem its comic effect." (Cusatis) about Robinson's "Miniver Cheevy". This is going back to what I said before about the character and the way he might have gone about writing the character’s personality. The writing of a character can be very difficult for many authors but Emerson and Robinson share a common trait that which neither of them have any problems with doing just that, and doing it very successfully. In my opinion, if an author can make up or even mock a person into

Cusatis, John. "'Miniver Cheevy'." In Anderson, George P., Judith S. Baughman, Matthew J. Bruccoli, and Carl Rollyson, eds. Encyclopedia of American Literature, Revised Edition: Into the Modern: 1896–1945, Volume 3. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= EAmL1232&SingleRecord=True (accessed March 7, 2012).

Robinson, Edwin A. ""Miniver Cheevy" by E.A. Robinson." The Poem Tree: An Online Poetry Anthology. Web. 07 Mar. 2012. .

Anton Chekov

I will be doing a reflection over Anton Chokov's "The Darling". The story is based mainly on the life, love life for that matter, of a women named Olkena, also referred to in the book as Olga Semyonovna. The story starts out talking about how fantastic and lovable the women is to everyone. In the story it says, "At the sight of her full rosy cheeks, her soft white neck with a little dark mole on it, and the kind, naïve smile, which came into her face when she listened to anything pleasant, men thought, "Yes, not half bad," and smiled too, while lady visitors could not refrain from seizing her hand in the middle of a conversation, exclaiming in a gush of delight, "You darling!"" (Chekov)This displays how she truly infatuated those who were around her. The women had many loves because she was such a good hearted women and loving to others, who then would return the love tomorrow. Her first marriage was to a man named Kuklin who she truly fell in love with. Their love made her change to view his ways over her own. This made her slightly changed, then one day she received a notice that he had died. The story then says how she , "as soon as she got indoors, she threw herself on her bed and sobbed so loudly that it could be heard next door, and in the street." (Checkov) This was a sad and gruesome time for the light hearted women until she met Vasily Pustovalov, who would soon become her second husband. As she did with Kuklin, she adapted the ways and lifestyle of her new husband changing the views she had adopted with Kuklin. Though the love does end yet again when Pastovalov dies. She met a man named Smirnin when she was with Vasily, who of which she told preached to him to work on his marriage. When Vasily dies all Olga has is Smirnin and soon they too become lovers, though since he is still married they do not wed. Smirnin leaves for a while and upon his return he reveals that him and his wife have reconciled their relationship, but Olga insists they move in with her and she will live in the guest house. This is when something very odd happens. The book says, "Ah, how she loved him! Of her former attachments not one had been so deep; never had her soul surrendered to any feeling so spontaneously, so disinterestedly, and so joyously as now that her maternal instincts were aroused. For this little boy with the dimple in his cheek and the big school cap, she would have given her whole life, she would have given it with joy and tears of tenderness. Why? Who can tell why? " (Chekov) This is describing how she found a new love for Smirnin's young son Sasha. This to her was very confusing. The story ends hinting that Sasha too would be leaving Olga as all the other had before him. The story is kind of an unfortunate one, but still is so great that it makes it a good story. This writing style is much like Thoreaus writing because of the ups and downs. It relates to Emerson through it extreme amounts of little details that bring the story to life.


Chekov, Anton. "Short Stories: The Darling by Anton Chekhov." East of the Web. Web. 07 Mar. 2012. .

Chief Joseph

I will be doing a reflection over the speech "I Will Fight No More Forever" by Chief Joseph. The speech is about a chief of an Indian tribe who is pleading to General Howard that there be no more fighting. He says in the speech, "What he told me before, I have in my heart. I am tired of fighting." (Joseph) Here the chief displays his true heart and soul is in what he is doing. This is like Thoreau because he would write of things that were important and close to his heart, as Chief Joseph did here. This gives the speech that heartwarming/ heart wrenching personality that makes it so popular. The speech then continues on to talk about how many of his men are missing and dead. This makes the speech very sad and hit another level because any time death is involved in a speech it then goes to another level of writing that can be hard to accomplish successfully without messing with the speech or putting in too much personal views. Here because it is a speech there is much of a personal view to it. This is very much like the idea of having a personal heart wrenching tale to be told that Emerson uses in his own speech "Divinity School Address". Although he uses more happy things instead of death like Joseph did in his speech. He says, “The little children are freezing to death." which pulls hard at your heart because the idea of little children dying is absolutely horrific to most people. This makes the speech slowly turn into a persuasive speech in my opinion because it uses things that would make you want to do what they are telling you to do. For instance, in this case the Chief is trying to get the people to stop fighting his people. By talking about how people and children are dying, this makes many people want to help make the fighting stop.


Joseph, Chief. "I Will Fight No More Forever." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 533 . Print.

Spoon River Anthology

The story I will be reflecting over is called Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters. The story itself is actually a collection of fictional poems from people who lived in a fictional place called Spoon River, Illinois. The tales they tell are a cumulative of tow-hundred and twelve characters with a grand total of two-hundred and forty-four stories/poems total. These were all very realistic tales and stories that portray their feelings and lively hoods at this time. Masters would even make most of his stories have names based on real live people he had heard of who passed away. The author even went as far as writing a poem on a women named Ann Rutledge, best known for possibly being the love interest of a Mr. Abraham Lincoln himself. (Willinghton) Although this isn't actually proven it gives these groups of tales a lot of spice and political scandal that at the time would have been pretty interesting to a reader. Although I have not, and more likely will not, go through all of the poems I have read a few. So far I have discovered that there are multiple stories that involve historical people and events. Such as the poem "Kinsey Keene" says, "Of Napoleon’s guard on Mount Saint Jean; At the battle field of Waterloo" (Masters 1) This was just one of many that would talk about a very important and well known historical figure. Many of them display facts and real life situations that are written so well that even if they were made up, you would believe them to be very real. This makes Masters such a wonderful author and puts him in a very close category with Thoreau and Emerson because they all have such raw writing styles. They seem to hold very little back giving the reader a very intense connection with the writing. A huge similarity between Thoreau and Masters is their very keen way of getting into the political parts through their writing. Although Thoreau was much more into the actual political issues, Masters was much more interested in the political scandals. Such as the Abraham Lincoln and Anne Rutledge controversy of whether or not they were truly lovers. His two-hundredth poem names "Anne Rutledge" said, "I am Anne Rutledge who sleep beneath these weeds, ;Beloved in life of Abraham Lincoln, ;Wedded to him, not through union, ;But through separation. ;Bloom forever, O Republic, ;From the dust of my bosom!" inferring that the controversy is not a controversy at all but a cold hard fact. This gives this story a real nail biting and even awkward feeling because as the reader you not know if this is true, but your reading it as if it were as real as a definition. This makes these stories so gripping and interesting to read, they are all so real feeling and have again such a raw truth to them that no one can deny is all thanks to the great author Edgar Lee Masters.


1) Masters, Edgar Lee. "13. Kinsey Keene. Masters, Edgar Lee. 1916. Spoon River Anthology." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online. Bartleby Bookstores. Web. 03 Mar. 2012. .

2)Masters, Edgar Lee. "200. Anne Rutledge. Masters, Edgar Lee. 1916. Spoon River Anthology." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online. Bartleby Bookstores. Web. 03 Mar. 2012. .


Willinghton, William. "Spoon River Anthology." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 29 Feb. 2012. Web. 03 Mar. 2012. .

Two Ways of Seeing a River

The story that I will be reflecting over is "Two Ways of Seeing a River" but Mark Twain. Mark Twain is a very well known author, especially for his book he Adventures of Tom Sawyer. It is in general about a man who has worked on the river basically all his life. At first he absolutely loved the river and everything about it. In the story he even says, "All the grace, the beauty, the poetry had gone out of the majestic river!" (Twain) describing the beauty it truly has. His job on the boat was to be a river boat pilot. This job is very important for the running of a good system of transporting on the waters. The main character has started to realize that the job he has is very dangerous. He begins to reflect on the dangers of what he does and how much he has been putting at risk. He says in the story, "that slanting mark on the water refers to a bluff reef which is going to kill somebody's steamboat one of these nights" (Twain) Here is where he displays how he is looking out and sees this reef and reflects that that very reef could kill someone. He continued to look around and describe things in nature that could kill him or his fellow boaters. This is like Emerson because not only the impeccable use of detail but they both use nature a lot in their stories. They bring life and voice to things that can't speak for themselves, theoretically that it. The story then continues to talk about how he believe the river has lost its beauty to him. In the story he says, "No, the romance and the beauty were all gone from the river. All the value any feature of it had for me now was the amount of usefulness it could furnish toward compassing the safe piloting of a steamboat." (Twain) Here is where you realize that all his compassion for the river has left and he doesn't believe that it is a good place to be anymore. Mark Twain writes a lot about truth and things that are real. A literary critic said "Those novels contain the hallmarks for which Twain continues to be revered: honesty, truth, the use of the plain vernacular of the ordinary American, humor, and above all, a genius for telling a story." (Werlock) about Mark Twain. This idea of truth and honesty in his writing is like Thoreau because he wrote many things about facts and what is going on in the time. The truth of both of their writing make them good writers.


Twain, Mark. "Two Ways of Seeing a River, by Mark Twain." About.com Grammar & Composition. Web. 01 Mar. 2012. .



Werlock, Abby H. P., ed. "Twain, Mark." The Facts On File Companion to the American Novel. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CANov0896&SingleRecord=True (accessed March 1, 2012).

The Red Badge of Courage

The story that I will be responding to is called The Red Badge of Courage by a man named Stephan Crane. The story is set in the time of the civil war. The main character is a soldier named Henry. Henry is on the Union (blue side) of the Civil War. This was a time of huge controversy and problems. This is a dead give away of an example of Thoreau's writings because it is a very controversial topic at the time. It gets even more controversial when they talk about how Henry wasn't a faithful soldier. The story talks about his thoughts before he later on actually did leave his soldiers and flee to the woods,"It had suddenly appeared to him that perhaps in a battle he might run. He was forced to admit that as far as war was concerned he knew nothing of himself." (Crane) This shows Henry's general struggle to find himself, so that way we can find himself a true man. He talks about hard troubles with his mother "But his mother had discouraged him. She had affected to look with some contempt upon the quality of his war ardor and patriotism." (Crane) This definitely effected his time in the war and the author Stephan Crane definitely displayed this very well. This emotional tie and truly heartening topic is very much something that Emerson would right about. Emerson is known for his really intense emotional concepts that touch people to their core, Crane did this as well talk about this mans life. A literary critic said "As an artist, Crane set out to capture the "unaesthetic whirl" in an aesthetic rendering that would preserve the dark tension of its beauty, and Red Badge is entirely consistent with that aim." (Shanahan) This critic is basically saying that this work is a work of art because it displays this disheartening story in such a way that it does it's exact purpose of awareness and inspiration of the war. Thoreau and Emerson were also well known for their wonderful ways of displaying awareness of difficult topics in their time periods.


Crane, Stephan. "Untitled Document." The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane. Web. 28 Feb. 2012. .

Shanahan, Daniel. "The Army Motif in The Red Badge of Courage as a Response to Industrial Capitalism." Papers on Language & Literature 32, no. 4 (Fall 1996). Quoted as "The Army Motif in The Red Badge of Courage as a Response to Industrial Capitalism" in Bloom, Harold, ed. The Red Badge of Courage, Bloom's Modern Critical Views. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 2003. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts on File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= MCITRBC012&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 28, 2012).

Kate Chopin

The story "The Story of an Hour" is by a women named Kate Chopin. She wrote the story in 1894. It starts out by talking about a women who is about to find out her husband is dead. The man was killed in a train accident and one of their family friends who works at the newspaper office. This shows the time period very well because it showed how slowly news is passed and how at that time it got to the newspaper before the family because they couldn't even contact them yet. They knew the widows devastation to the loss of her husband would be grand and expected it. Her reaction was quite large as it is said in the story, "She wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself she went away to her room alone." (Chopin). The story then went on into describing the women's surroundings as she went into a room by herself. The vivid descriptions remind me very much of Emerson's writings because he is a very well known vivid writer. His poem "Art" displays this idea of vivid descriptions of surroundings perfectly, much like Kate Chopin's "The Story of an Hour" does. A quote from "Art" saying "On the city's paved street ;Plant gardens lined with lilacs sweet; Let spouting fountains cool the air,; Singing in the sun-baked square;" (Emerson) shows how he loved to extrude the little details and give everything life. Chopin has a description in "The Story of and Hour" just as vivid stating "She was young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes, whose gaze was fixed away off yonder on one of those patches of blue sky." (Chopin) This part describing her sad, weeping, and mourning time right after the loss of her beloved husband. Although the story seems grim for the wife it takes a crazy turn of events, yet still stays grim for the women. A literary critic says it best when he says, "In a Surprise Ending, her husband walks through the front door, and Louise suffers a heart attack and dies." (Werlock)The story itself I liked a lot because of its attention to detail and of course surprise endings give any story a better review.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Art." Poemhunter.com. Poemhunter.com. Web. 23 Feb. 2012. .


Werlock, Abby H. P. "'The Story of an Hour'." The Facts On File Companion to the American Short Story, Second Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2009. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CASS782&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 23, 2012).


Chopin, Kate. ""The Story of an Hour"" Virginia Commonwealth University. Web. 23 Feb. 2012. .

A Wagner Matinee

The story A Wagner Matinee by Willa Cather is a literature piece about a women who is living the pioneer life style and how it has affected her life. The story is from the perspective of a women named Aunt Georgiana's nephew. The nephew is informed that his aunt, whom which used to care for him as a child, is coming back to Boston from Nebraska for a visit to claim a newly founded estate. The nephew then takes this time to rekindle some time that has been lost since her thirty year pioneerage to Nebraska. He feels that she has done so much for him as a child and recollects some fond memories spent with her. He says "I owed to this woman most of the good that ever came my way in my boyhood, and had a reverential affection for her."("Willa...) whenever he talks about his childhood with is aunt. He feels so much remorse for her because he feels her soul has gone to stone and has been "dead" for thirty years. He describes her eyes in this sentence by saying "She sat looking about her with eyes as impersonal, almost as stony, as those with which the granite Rameses in a museum watches the froth and fret that ebbs and flows about his pedestal-separated from it by the lonely stretch of centuries." ("Willa...) The author then goes on to say how his aunt was a wonderful musician when she was young and loved music and has now realized she has lost her love for it. This saddens him the most and he makes a plan to change this long time lost. "At two o'clock the Symphony Orchestra was to give a Wagner program, and I intended to take my aunt; though, as I conversed with her I grew doubtful about her enjoyment of it." ("Willa...) This was his exact plan and although he was quite nervous of following through he did with great success. A the end his aunt says "I don't want to go, Clark, I don't want to go!" ("Willa...) A literary critic talks about Cather's writing in her story by saying "Key structuring techniques that will retain importance throughout Cather's canon are already evident in this early story, for example, significant or symbolic names." (Werlock) This compares to Thoreau and Emerson because they both use symbols in their writings to take their writing to the next level. This compares to Thoreau and Emerson because they both use symbols in their writings to take their writing to the next level. This technique is very unique and makes the writing become even better, making this a good one.

Werlock, Abby H. P. "'A Wagner Matinée'." The Facts On File Companion to the American Short Story, Second Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2009. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CASS846&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 18, 2012).


"Willa Cather's Short Story: A Wagner Matinee." Read Book Online: Literature Books,novels,short Stories,fiction,non-fiction, Poems,essays,plays,Pulitzer Prize, Nobel Prize. Readbookonline.net, 2011. Web. 18 Feb. 2012. .

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

The story I will be reflecting over is called “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce. The story was originally published and written in 1890. This means it was after the Civil war, yet there still some friction between the north and the south. For instance in the story he refers to the soldiers who are giving him the death sentence as being from the north. "Some loose boards laid upon the sleepers supporting the metals of the railway supplied a footing for him and his executioners--two private soldiers of the Federal army, directed by a sergeant who in civil life may have been a deputy sheriff." (Bierce) When it talks of the Federal army it is referring to those from the north. It is also told that he is a man from the south and keeps the ideas that many southerners had in this time, which was very much opposite of the Norths. "Being a slave owner and like other slave owners a politician he was naturally an original secessionist and ardently devoted to the Southern cause" (Bierce) This definitely leads you to believing that that is what he is being prosecuted for, or something he has done to the northerners for that matter. This idea of the civil war persecution is very similar to the ideas of Thoreau because it is a very politically touchy subject which most authors would struggle writing because of taking it to far. Thoreau on the other hand, along with Bierce managed to accomplish this with little scrutiny compared to others who were knee deep in politically sketchy topics. One critic talks about how Bierce served in the civil army himself which is more likely where he gets his realistic writing ideas from, which is very praise-able work. He wrote this "Having served in the Civil War himself, Bierce was ideally suited to portray the plight of ordinary soldiers of that period, and the majority of his stories, supernatural and otherwise, are linked to that conflict."(D'Ammassa) about Bierce in his criticism. The whole story is very theatrical with lots of vivid descriptions giving it a very well developed picture which was much like Emerson's writings, who was very into details in his own writings. The story itself portrays a very good picture of political happenings in the past without it being to documentary and still having credible ideas to it.


D'Ammassa, Don. "'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge'." Encyclopedia of Fantasy and Horror Fiction. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= EFHF0384&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 18, 2012).
Bierce, Ambrose. "Fiction: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." Fiction: Welcome to The EServer's Fiction Collection. EServer. Web. 18 Feb. 2012. .

Letter to His Son

A man by the name of Robert E. Lee wrote a story/speech called "Letter to His Son". The letter displays his evident opinion on the newly dividing of our country between northern and southern. It is quite obvious that is not for the idea of splitting our country in half. He says, "I must try and be patient and await the end, for I can do nothing to hasten or retard it." (Lee) This shows that although he does not like what is going on he can do nothing about it really for he is just one man. This make him seem to be kind of a talker and not so much a walked, or in other words likes to blow hot air but doesn't seem to want to do anything about it. This to me separates him from Thoreau because Thoreau was more of a talked and an actor, while Lee on the other hand falls short when it comes to acting on what he is saying. Lee and Thoreau yet are still very similar because they do both hit the very political topics of the time. Emerson is also very similar because Emerson likes to use a lot of specific examples and ideas. Such as when he says, "I see that four states have declared themselves out of the Union; four more will apparently follow their example" (Lee) This is an example of how he specifically shows exactly what was going on during the time, right at the beginning of the civil war. Lee had a very opinionated outlook on what was going on. His words may have even come out a bit biased at times though making the story slighted a bit, but generally the facts are the facts and there is very little altering in that sense. Robert E. Lee was actually a general for the Confederates army which could very easily explain is evident biased attitude. (Long. Although it was biased the writing itself is a historical classic no matter what.

Long, See A. L. "Robert E. Lee Biography." The Civil War. Son Of The South, 2003-2008. Web. 14 Feb. 2012. .

Lee, Robert E. "Letter to His Son." Glencoe Literature. Comp. Jeffrey Wilhelm. American Literature ed. Columbus; McGraw-Hill, 2010. 385. Print.

Aint I a Women

A story by Sojourner truth called "Aint I a Women" is about women's rights and slavery. This is very much a political piece acting out for women's rights and slavery to be abolished. When it repeats the phrase "Ain't I a Women" (Truth) multiple times throughout the story it is evident that this is especially towards back slave women. In the story Truth says, "Nobody ever helped me into carriages or over mud puddles or gives me a best place. . " (Truth) This to me shows how truly bad it was at the time and how black women got little to no respect as the other white women living at the time. This is a sad a tragic thing and is portrayed very nicely in her writing. This is very similar to Thoreau's writings because it was very politically biased. Thoreau was and is still known for his writings on tough political topics of the time. This make Truths writing have much more meaning than just any old story. She is very blunt when she talks about how her rights as a black women were trashed in her writing, "that little man in black there say a woman can't have as much rights as a man cause Christ wasn't a woman" (Truth) She then went on to say that Christ himself came from a women did he not? and again repeats the very vivid phase "ain't I a women". This gives a lot of emphasis and detail on the real matter at hand. Another man by the name of Emerson was very good at giving specifics and details about what he was talking about, and would often go into so much detail that you felt as if you were there. This is what Truth did, she added enough detail to make me almost angry and feel as if I were in this time period myself. A literary critic says , "Sweeping aside quibbles about the intelligence of women and blacks, she demands female rights for all women." (Snodgrass) This highlights how Truth was truly a women activist working on making the world better for women, black women in particular. She showed a true test of strength and dignity in the speech that has still remained popular today.



Snodgrass, Mary Ellen. "'Ain't I a Woman?'." Encyclopedia of Feminist Literature. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= EFL009&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 14, 2012).



Truth, Sojourner. "Sojourner Truth's Aint I a Woman Speech!" Women Writers: A Zine. Web. 13 Feb. 2012. .

3 Songs

The three songs/poems I am reviewing over are "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", "Keep Your Hands on the Plow", and "Go Down Moses". Swing Low, Sweet Chariot is about going home but I take that as going home to the heavens which gives a very religious feel to it. This is known when it says "Comin' for to carry me home," ("Swing...)multiple times during the story. A literary criticism said "His return (or at least the return of someone or some angel from that era) in such a vehicle to convey the speaker to heaven, his/her "home.""(Huff) which explains that home does mean heaven. This makes the story distant from Thoreau and Emerson writings because they were not known for religious writings. Go Down Moses is talking about a religious figure named Moses going down to Egypt asking to let his fellow people go. It is repeated many times "Let my people go"("Go..), which is quite a demanding statement. The story is about a very contravercial concept in the time of the 1940's when it came out. A literary criticism said, "The story is generally recognized as one of Faulkner's most astute handlings of the complex issue of race relations in the South during the 1940s." (Fargnoli) This is very much close to Thoreau's writing because it is on the a complex issue which is very much related to the way Thoreau writes because he tended to stay in the controversial political topics. And lastly Keep Your Hands on the plow is about Christianity as a whole and talking about some major things that happened in it. Such as "Peter was so nice and neat,Wouldn't let Jesus wash his feet." ("Your..) because it is talking specifically about when Jesus washes Peters feet in the Bible. This is a close relation to Emerson because of his intense attention to details in the songs in relation to the Bible. Emerson did not relate so much to the Bible but was very specific.

Fargnoli, Nicholas A., Michael Golay, and Robert W. Hamblin. "'Go Down, Moses'." Critical Companion to William Faulkner: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work, Critical Companion. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2008. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CCWF3044&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 13, 2012).


Huff, Randall. "'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot'." 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. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CPAP0396&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 13, 2012).

"Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, Lyrics." Scout Songs: Song Lyrics for Boy Scouts Songs, Girl Scouts Songs, and American Patriotic Songs. Web. 13 Feb. 2012. .

"Keep Your Hands on the Plow." Yet Another Digital Tradition Page. Web. 13 Feb. 2012. .

"Go Down Moses." Web. 13 Feb. 2012. .

Calvary Crossing a Ford Reflection

This reflection will be over Walt Whitman's poem "Cavalry Crossing a Ford". I would like to fist start out by saying this poem was written in 1865 (Poetry), which means it was written in the time during the civil war. Knowing this the poem begins to become more understandable and clear to the reader. The poem describes how they looked in comparison to other things. In other words he was using a lot of descriptions that did not exactly go with it but inferring it's about the soldiers it actually is very creative. For instance, in line two Walt Whitman says "They take a serpentine course—their arms flash in the sun". (Whitman) The author does not mean that their "arms" were flashing in the sun, he meant their guns. This shows how Walt Whitman used creative writing to make something such as war not so gruesome as it truly was. A man by the name of Max Nardau wrote in his literary criticism over Walt Whitman's poetry "He is morally insane, and incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, virtue and crime." (Nordau) This to me explains why he doesn't go into any true gruesome details of how bad the civil war, and almost makes it sound beautiful. Walt Whitman gives even a pretty picture of the army by the river when he says, "Behold the silvery river—in it the splashing horses, loitering, stop to drink". (Whitman) This portrays to me a beautiful scene of horsing in the water with the sun shining with their owners standing near by gazing into the beautiful river. This is the opposite of most of Thoreau's because Thoreau would use the gruesome details to get the point across that he wanted to get to his readers. For example in Thoreau's writing "Civil Disobedience" he writes about the army as well but he says "In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well." (Thoreau), which portrays a much different picture of the soldiers. As Whitman liked to keep things happy and soulful, Thoreau tended to take the more realistic and yet very pessimistic route. Although is see little relation to Thoreau, I do see some to the great Emerson. The ideas of having such admiration of nature and looking at the little things in life is very much an Emerson-like writing style. In the very first line of "Cavalry Crossing A Ford" he displays his simplistic naturalistic writing style when he says "where they wind betwixt green islands". (Whitman) All in all Whitman was a writer that liked to stay on the lighter side of things while still hitting the political topics of the time, without having to be to politically one sided nor to involved in the specific details of the politics.


Nordau, Max. Degeneration, 1895: 230–32. Quoted as "On the Poetry of Walt Whitman" in Bloom, Harold, ed. Walt Whitman, Classic Critical Views. New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CCVWaW040&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 9, 2012).


Poetry for Students. "Cavalry Crossing a Ford Study Guide - Walt Whitman - ENotes.com." ENotes - Literature Study Guides, Lesson Plans, and More. Gale Cengage. All Rights Reserved, 2012. Web. 09 Feb. 2012. .

Thoreau, Henry D. "Thoreau's Civil Disobedience - with Annotated Text." The Thoreau Reader. Richard Lenat, 2009. Web. 24 Jan. 2012. .

Whitman, Walt. Leaves of Grass. Philadelphia: David McKay, [c1900]; Bartleby.com, 1999. www.bartleby.com/142/. [2/9/12].

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln is known for being one of the best presidents this nation has ever seen, but little do we recognize his great writings as often as we should. For instance his "Second Inaugural Address" is basically a masterpiece of the American literature. In the speech he talks a lot about slavery and the abolishing of it. He is very much against it and talks about how greatly evil it truly is. In paragraph three he opens by saying "One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it." (Lincoln) This stood out a lot to me because he gives the cold hard facts which in themselves are persuasive. This reminds me a lot of Thoreau's writing style because it leads back a lot to transcendentalism. It does this when it talk about the facts to get a point across about how their needs to be a political change in America. I believe Lincoln thought that if we were to move on as a United State we must get rid of slavery. He displays this idea in the last paragraph saying "with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan," (Lincoln) Although he is not so blunt about it as to say that it is specifically about doing right by abolishing slavery, it is very well inferred that that is what he was talking about. There is a slight Emerson effect here as well when it talks about all of our individual duties to make us become one as a nation in this time of rebuilding our nation. A man named Jacques Barzun said in his criticism of the "Second Inaugural Address" "For his style, the plain, undecorated language in which he addresses posterity, is no mere knack with words. It is the manifestation of a mode of thought, of an outlook which colors every act of the writer's and tells us how he rated life." (Barzun) Which in other words means he truly sees Lincoln's speech as the raw truth of how things truly were. He then went on later to say kind of why he believes that Lincoln had so much success as a political person by saying "They think of the momentous issues of the Civil War, of the grueling four years in Washington, of the man beset by politicians who were too aggressive and by generals who were not enough so, and the solution flashes upon them." This to me definately explains a lot of what was going on at the time and why transcendentalism writing was such a huge thing at the time.

Barzun, Jacques. "Lincoln the Literary Genius." The Saturday Evening Post, Vol. 231, No. 33 (14 February 1959): 30, 62–4. In Bloom, Harold, ed. Enslavement and Emancipation, Bloom's Literary Themes. New York: Chelsea Publishing House, 2010. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= BLTEAE011&SingleRecord=True (accessed February 8, 2012)

Lincoln, Abraham. "Abraham Lincoln: Second Inaugural Address. U.S. Inaugural Addresses. 1989." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More. Bartleby, 2011. Web. 08 Feb. 2012. .

Dougless Blog

The speech given by Fredrick Douglass called “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro” is still a mark in American history today because of it's intense truth in what was truly going on at the time. He even stated in paragraph ten "to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their mastcrs?". (Douglass) This in itself has such an intense and heart wrenching reality to it that gives a lasting impression still today. Douglass gave a very convincing portrayal of what was going on at this time in American society. He let the citizens he was speaking to know the harsh reality that was their truth. He spoke of all men as humans, which in some respects relates back to Emerson s writings because it talks of each individual man as being important. While Emerson would write about individuals and our rights as individuals. In paragraph nine Douglass questions this when saying "Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for Republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to be understood?". (Douglass) Here he is talking about how people say that African Americans are not going about getting their independence in the right way, his rebuttal is how else but to give the cold hard facts? This is very Thoreau like to me because he gives a very intense idea that the government is being unjust, which was a huge part of most of the great Henry David Thoreau's writing.


Douglass, Frederick. "Africans in America/Part 4/Frederick Douglass Speech." PBS: Public Broadcasting Service. International Publishers Co., Inc. Web. 06 Feb. 2012. .

Fear

The moment when your hand begins to sweat uncontrollably. All of your skin becomes clammy and cold. You become silent, not just on the outside but silent on the inside. Your thoughts begin to be encased by the fear you are feeling and there is nothing that can make you feel better. Shaking from the inside out but yet trying to be so still. Feeling like the pit of your stomach that it is turning. These feelings come over most when there is a fear in them. This happens to people at different times and for different reasons. Some people can handle their fears while others let these fears overcome and even take over their everyday lives. Some have trouble giving up on some child like fears such as; being afraid of the dark, thinking that their is something under their bed, or thinking the 'boogy man" is in their closets. Many high school students fear things like failing, being humiliated in front of other students, not exceeding in their sport, getting broken up with or rejected, and/or not getting accepted into the college they want. Many adults have fears of being alone forever, divorce, losing their job, being homeless, getting robbed, their children or significant other passing. These fears can go for all ages but the ones I described for each group are thought about on a daily to weekly bases. These are the fears that sometimes consume people lives. Fears are things that people too often say are weaknesses. This is not true to me at all. To me it is only a problem when people allow these things to take over their lives. Many people have multiple fears, and not matter how much they say they have no fears, everyone has at least one. It is just human nature. We all have to have fear so that we can sensor ourselves in a way so that we don’t do things that are harmful to us or become superior.

Reflection over Civil Disobedience

The era of transcendentalism was alive and defiantly prominent in the story "Civil Disobedience basically the entire time. Although I am not going to lie, the author himself, Henry David Thoreau, was very partial and almost rash when it came to what he was saying. This can be considered a sure quality of transcendentalism because of how politically pressured it was. "How does it become a man to behave toward this American government to-day? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave's government also" (Thoreau 1) This to me is a bit much and over dramatic for my taste. Especially when he begins to talk about how his government would not be like the "slaves" government that he is apart of now. This idea of independence in himself and in man is also a huge part of transcendentalism. The fact that one is able to know that a government is right or wrong on their own is also a characteristic. "If you are cheated out of a single dollar by your neighbor, you do not rest satisfied with knowing that you are cheated, or with saying that you are cheated, or even with petitioning him to pay you your due; but you take effectual steps at once to obtain the full amount, and see that you are never cheated again." (Thoreau 2) This in a way displays how we do now of when something is wrong and when we are wronged. Thoreau then goes on to explain how why if we do not rest when we are wronged by our neighbor do we rest when we are being wronged by our government. I actually really enjoyed this part of the story because it made me really open my eyes to how true this is even today! As a whole our world does look at these probabilities but we all do not take a stand as much as if we were to know that someone had stolen from our bank accounts or wallets. We all would be hiring a lawyer and taking action right away, most do not take any stand to the government. Transcendentalism also very much connects to nature. Tiffany K. Wayne said "The Transcendentalists drew upon romantic thought in the formulation of an "organic" aesthetic, the foundational Transcendentalist theory that language and art are expressions or translations of nature and that human and universal meaning is to be found in the forms of nature." This is displayed in Civil Disobedience when it says "I saw to what extent the people among whom I lived could be trusted as good neighbors and friends; that their friendship was for summer weather only; that they did not greatly propose to do right;" (Thoreau 3) He connects the natures season of summer to be the reason his neighbors and friends did not do right. He believes that we are truly connected to the nature and world we live in.



Thoreau, Henry D. "Thoreau's Civil Disobedience - with Annotated Text." The Thoreau Reader. Richard Lenat, 2009. Web. 24 Jan. 2012. .


Wayne, Tiffany K. "romanticism and Transcendentalism." Encyclopedia of Transcendentalism. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= GETRA321&SingleRecord=True (accessed January 24, 2012).

Break Laws?

Breaking laws is actually not okay at all, obviously, but is there any reason for it to be okay to break the law? Is there any reason that completely breaking a law would be acceptable? This is something that had been debated for years because of circumstances. When the circumstances are different, should the laws be different? Obviously when a person goes into a store and takes something it is against the law. But think about this, what if it is poor homeless women with a new born getting food to feed her and her child. Does that make it okay to break the law? That circumstance is not as common as a regular old shop lifting story. How about this idea, what if there is an awful man who has been doing bad things. This man rapes a father’s daughter and she tells her father. She showered after so any evidence was gone. The father and daughter knew who it was and took him to court but the guy was let go because of not enough evidence. The little girl finds out the man has raped another friend of her after her, the father knows that this man will not stop. He finally goes to the man’s house and kills him. That is murder, which is a felony. Yet, the man was a rapist of little girls and wasn't getting caught. The man himself was a sick human being. This man ruined lives and made little innocent girls suffer. So technically this man deserved to be punished, and be punished by death so is it okay for the father to have killed him. The man did deserve what he got but is it okay for someone to do that. It is no one’s job to kill someone who was not convicted of their supposed crime/crimes. This to me is such a wishy washy way of life and law because there is so many cracks. There is no way that this can be fixed though because the law cannot say it is okay to kill someone because they “deserved it”, because that would cause even more grey areas.

Reflection over The MInister's Black Veil

First I want to start off by saying that I truly enjoyed reading this story. From the very beginning it captured my attention when it said ""But what has good Parson Hooper got upon his face?" cried the sexton in astonishment. All within hearing immediately turned about, and beheld the semblance of Mr. Hooper, pacing slowly his meditative way towards the meeting-house. With one accord they started, expressing more wonder than if some strange minister were coming to dust the cushions of Mr. Hooper's pulpit."Are you sure it is our parson?" inquired Goodman Gray of the sexton."" (Hawthorne) This statement made me want to keep reading to learn what was really over their beloved ministers face. Come to find out it was a black veil, like a women might wear. This shocked the people of the town and intrigued me as the reader. This idea of mystery and dark sadness is a symbol of dark romanticism. This makes the story very mysterious because the minister does not move the veil or allow his face to be shown at all, not even at the end on his death bed. Nathanial Hawthorne did a fantastic job on giving the veil a very realistic feel to it, it almost gave it a life. This is a huge example of personification. The also makes the story very eery and unnerving keeping the dark romanticism style very much in tact. Hawthorne also displays dark romanticism when he writes "And thus speaking, the Reverend Mr. Clark bent forward to reveal the mystery of so many years. But, exerting a sudden energy, that made all the beholders stand aghast, Father Hooper snatched both his hands from beneath the bedclothes, and pressed them strongly on the black veil, resolute to struggle, if the minister of Westbury would contend with a dying man. "Never!" cried the veiled clergyman. "On earth, never!"" (Hawthorne) This displays dark romanticism because it gives the story a true terrifying reveal to a long life of sorrow. This man will never reveal his face and that in itself lets your mind wonder and imagine what he looks like. One huge characteristic of dark romanticism is imagination. Critical Companion to Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work, Critical Companion says “Since the character himself never reveals the mystery of the black veil, readers have been forced to propose their own theories. Edgar Allan Poe, as well as other critics, have suggested that Hooper wears the veil as penance for a "specific sin," perhaps connected with the young woman whose funeral he conducts. Other theories are that the veil symbolizes the sins of his congregation, but that in the end it has made him a monster, severing his link with humanity.” (Wright) Showing how imagination in the story is displayed. The story is fantastic on displaying how you can let your mind wander to scary fantasies of what could be in the story. This makes the story more interesting and makes me truly love “The Minister’s Black Veil”.

Hawthorne,, Nathaniel. "The Minister's Black Veil, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1836." Eldritch Press. Twice Told Tales. Web. 23 Jan. 2012.

Wright, Sarah Bird. "'The Minister's Black Veil'." Critical Companion to Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work, Critical Companion. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CCNH403&SingleRecord=True (accessed January 23, 2012).

"Pit and The Pendulum" Poe

The story itself has a very eery and sick feeling to it, almost to the point where I literally felt tension in the pit of my stomach. Larger part of that consists of the talk of death and process of death. In the beginning he is talking about how he is listening to his sentence of death. "The sentence -- the dread sentence of death -- was the last of distinct accentuation which reached my ears." (Poe) The sadness in the part pours out of the words. The idea of death and almost mourning of the fact of him losing his life is very much a dark romanticism quality. Mourning especially is a large part of dark romanticism because it gives a very dark and eery side to the idea of the nature and happy romanticism period. The idea of mystery then plays a huge part throughout the rest the poem because you are questioning whether he is still alive, dying, or just dead. A little later he defines slightly what he could feel was happening "Then silence, and stillness, night were the universe. I had swooned ; but still will not say that all of consciousness was lost. What of it there remained I will not attempt to define, or even to describe; yet all was not lost." (Poe) Even here though he still keeps the dark romanticism theme of the fact that there is still a mystery on whether his state is alive or dead. Another very largely uses characteristic that Poe uses in “The Pit and the Pendulum” is the idea of a subconscious mind and dreaming. This is largely uses concept because it stays consistent with the imaginary aspect of romanticism writings. Charles E. May says in his criticism about Poe’s “Pit and the Pendulum” that “Focusing on a character under sentence of death and aware of it, it moves the character into a concrete dilemma that seems to "stand for" a metaphysical situation in an ambiguous way that suggests its "dreamy," "indeterminate" nature. In this story we find the most explicit statement in Poe's fiction of his sense of the blurry line between dream and reality.” (May). This means that he is basically saying that Poe likes to exaggerate the things that happen in this dream like state. These are the times when we aren’t truly here nor are we truly anywhere else either. The idea is very dark romanticism because it again gives mystery and depth to any story. The “Pit and the Pendulum” is a prime example because of how it talks about his time in which he is not quite dead nor is he alive, but truly he has absolutely no idea which one he really is. There is a time within the story when he begins to almost become happy about the idea of dying and that is when he begins to come back to “real” life. Talking much of the idea of madness or loss of control in his mind he describes this time of feeling like he were dyeing with many of the dark romanticism qualities that Poe was so very good at.

May, Charles E. "Alternate Realms of Reality." In Edgar Allan Poe: A Study of Short Fiction. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1991, pp. 96–97. Quoted as "Dreams and Reality in the Story" in Harold Bloom, ed. Edgar Allan Poe, Bloom's Major Short Story Writers. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 1998. (Updated 2007.) Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= BMSSEP39&SingleRecord=True (accessed January 19, 2012).


Poe, Edgar. "The Pit and the Pendulum." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 97-99. Print.

Journal #24

Things that give you shivers up your spine, hairs stand on end, and make you feel like your stomach is dropping to you feet are the things that spook you. These are the things that make you scared to move or even breathe. The spooks give you a chance to be scared and nervous about something that may or may not be real. I have had this same weary chill go through my spine many times but this one time was the worst. Terrifyingly mysterious may explain it better than anything. It started out as a normal night in my house. Everyone was asleep besides my mother, my friend Cara who was staying the night, and me. We were all just sitting in the living room minding our own. My mother was on the computer looking up various make-up things, because she is slightly obsessed. That began a few years ago when she became very interested in the idea of making your face abnormally beautiful, which she did very well. Cara and I were just watching some TV snacking on things that were definitely unhealthy in every sense of the word. Reaching for another huge chunk of brownie we were all stopped in our tracks when we heard the loudest crash of glass I have ever heard. We have many glass things in our house including a large glass door; I and my mother ran to the other room thinking that it was that large door or something huge. Cara followed behind us much slower being a lot more cautious than me and my mother. We all thought we would walk around the house and find glass scattered in one of the rooms, but we found nothings. We searched for hours and hours and found nothing. We all were confused and then it was obvious that there was nothing broken. I looked at Cara and my mother and that feeling of spooked came over all of us, it was silent to the point where you could hear a pin drop. Shivers went up my spine to where I actually have to shake my body to get it out. We all slowly walked back to the living room, back to what we were doing before. It was nothing but normal the rest the night because we all kept an ear open to hear of any more signs of the mystery broken glass. My mother and I have yet to find any sign of anything broken in or outside our household.

Edgar Allan Poe Poem Reflection

I read the poem called "Alone" by Edgar Allan Poe. When I read it through the first time I didn't exactly understand it completely but I could tell it was sad. I then went through the story a second time dissecting it line by line. The first four lines talk about his childhood. It says how he was not like the other children in any way. He did not find any happiness in the thing that brought happiness to other children. His passions were not like theirs and didn't come from the same place as theirs did. (Poe 1-4) This is a symbolism of dark romanticism because it displays how dark the truth of a man is. One idea of dark romanticism is just that, that every man has a true deep side inside of him. In the poem "Alone" it is shown when he talks about "And all I lov'd -- I lov'd alone --" (Poe 8) that he felt a dark sadness inside him. He felt that he was alone in the world and enjoyed things alone, ultimately making him confused. That then leads into another characteristic of mystery being displayed in dark romanticism writing style. "Then -- in my childhood -- in the dawn; Of a most stormy life -- was drawn; From ev'ry depth of good and ill ; The mystery which binds me still -- " (Poe 9-12) This quote shows how his life was full of mystery and questions that he did no understand himself. He began the quote by talking about how his life from the beginning was a "storm", meaning it was a mess and would continue to be just that. This life he believed was brought on by all things good and bad, which was most confusing because how can something bad come out of good. The idea of bad coming from bad makes sense, obviously, but bad from good was something neither he nor many ever understand. His display of questioning this is just much more intense and dramatic than most peoples. This is an example of another romanticism characteristic of that over-dramatic-detailed style. Poe then went on to talk about things that should be considered beautiful and good to look at such as”autumn tint of gold --; From the lightning in the sky” (Poe 17-18) “And the cloud that took the form; (When the rest of Heaven was blue)” (Poe 18-19). There is almost a sense of happiness regained when he talks about these things. Still he then does add things that keep the dark romanticism style but those happy things just went against all romanticism style things. The very last line he threw all non- dark romanticism ideas out the window when he wrote “Of a demon in my view –“. (Poe 22) Which was right after he wrote about the heavens sky as I quoted above, showing how although there is beauty everywhere around him, he could not see it. All he could see was the bad in things and the bad in the life around him. This is a very cynical view of life, which is also a largely used characteristic of dark romanticism. Obviously Poe is a picture perfect, although he would probably not want to be thought of that way, idea of how dark romanticism should and was written.

Poe, Edgar Allan. "Alone." The Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore. LFC Hosting, 5 Aug. 2011. Web. 17 Jan. 2012. .

Journal #23 Scary

The idea of scary is all around us. People are always thinking of how to scare others. Whether its just hiding around a corner and popping out, the director of the new thriller, or the author of a new scary story. The ideas of things that can make the human mind go crazy with fear are going through a lot of peoples heads on a daily bases. That to me is scary in itself. I remember when I first began to be exposed to scary things. The first real scary movie I ever watched was the Ring. I remember hiding behind furniture and holding onto my brother and dad as if I were drowning and the were my life vest. I have never been so terrified of a movie in my entire life then I was that night. I hadn't realized it then but the movie itself was really not that scary in comparison to movies I have seen since. I have seen the Ring many times since that first time and I have never been that scared as I was that night. Maybe it was because it was the first real scary movie i have ever been, or maybe it is just because the night itself was scary. Scary things are different for everyone and tend to change over-time. When I was younger I was scared of the dark, being alone, and things like that. Now I am scared of getting in a car crash, death, and losing a loved one in any way. Those are things that make me nervous and shake as the dark did when I was a child. As we age we realize that things like the monster under the bed, the goblin in the closet, and the boogyman aren't real and especially are nothing to be afraid of. We tend to live in a world of fear and fearless. Very few let themselves have a medium between the two because of a fear they can't get over or the idea that they are unstoppable. Neither are good but both are most common. Letting oneself be able to get over a fear while still keeping slight cation will allow one to live life much easier.

Journal #22

The snow fell onto the ground with a force
It was as white as Billy's neighbor horse
The hill made for a good, large, and steep slope
Little kids looked to their parents with large hope
Parents gave a concerning sighing look
The children gave them the best line and hook
With a little convincing and some tears
The parents tried to block out all the fears
All of the children ran happily there
It was to much for their parents to bear
The kids went all the way up to the top
They showed not a sign of a single stop
Not thinking of what could be the dangers
The children made friends with complete strangers
With the red sled and toboggan in hand
They prepared for the big white hill so grand
With their butts on the sled and ready to go
All the way down the kids face was a glow
At the bottom they were met by grown ups
So very happy to see their little pups
After a few runs down the great white hill
The children had finally had their fill
Walking hand and hand with their parents home
Given hot chocolate double the foam

Journal #21

The blank slate of white pureness covered the land. It was untouched and beautiful as the sun rose that beautiful morning. The world was quiet on the seventh day of the week, for no one was up early for work or other alternate things one would need to attend to. The first child that saw the beauty was wide eyed to the blank slate of which he knew he could enjoy. The trees were covered with white fluff and shook because of its bitter cold, or maybe just because of the light breeze running over its body. No blade of grass was in sight nor a leaf on a branch. The beauty of the dancing snow flakes in the air was like a ballet show. They twirled right and left and around the world below as it fell to the bottom. It landing beautifully without a clash, bang, or sound of any kind. It was soft and innocent without any intention of harm. It gave life to the dead world around it that had been stripped away of its beauty by the cold that came before it. When the sun hit the flakes it turned into glitter and shined everywhere. The shower of glitter feel into piles and soon enough the children were make balls and throwing it in the air without a care in the world. These children filled with pure joy raced down the hills on their sleds and toboggans. Those who were to scared to ride the hill made beautiful white men with coal eyes and carrot noses. The happy smiles of the snowmen were unfailing, along with the children who created them. Parents called to their children to come in for lunch in the warm hot chocolate. Even as they all left the glittered snow trampled and balled up, it was still as beautiful as ever. It was tinted but still its pureness was evident. That was something that was unfailing no matter how many little feet and hands were to play with it.