Omelet or Hamlet?

Hamlet is an interesting play; the way that the plot of the play works, and all of the double meanings with everything that hamlet says. This play is taught to all seniors yes, but it probably never really gets fully understand by these seniors; and also might who are just trying to finish high school with as good grades as they can. Then there are the people who do get the play and know exactly what they are going to do with their life; they also know how to reach their goals hastily. I am here to say I am not any of these two types of people. I do care where I go in life and how to get there. 

Though most of the time I am lost when reading this Shakespearean play “Hamlet”. In this play there are many characters that have many different “personalities” that show through the play. This play also makes me think harder than any math problem that I have seen in a long while. I am the type of person that does not like to dive into a text to find out a deeper meaning than what is on the surface. This is one of the reasons that this play is so hard for me to handle. The characters of this play also lead into the confusion of this play, but I think the hardest part for most of the seniors who read this play is trying to understand the language that Shakespeare uses since it has changed so much since then. That is what I think of this hamlet.

Jandars tale??

               I have thought of many different outcomes over the week, but I still do not know the correct way to go about this. First I had been chased by the uh…. “things” then Shane had not come over for dinner, and to top it all off Barbra has stopped talking to me. How did it come to this; me sitting in the corner of the throne room weeping? For Ungo’s sake why am I weeping? I should just think back to when this day had been a normal, well normal for me anyways, day. It was just a regular ughsday; I had picked up my club from the local bluntery, and I had needed to find my seedling before their school got out.

                “Mighty fine day to get your club shaped back to form isn’t it Jandar?” Somi asked rapidly as I walked out of the bluntery with my club on my back.

                I have no clue what I began writing here, though I find it kind of interesting. I might continue this story further to see how this, (race undecided), Jandar will go from what he might call a normal day to a not so great day.  I am still trying to come up with how everything will fit together within this story. I do not know if I should add more details or just clarify later on where they are or what is happening in the world around them.  

                This is the unnamed story of Jandar. Come back Saturday for an update on the story, to maybe find out who this Jandar is or Whatever a seedling is.

Shakespeare

Shakespeare was an amazing playwright, and poet. Even Though he was alive during a period of very advanced technology he had written things that are still used today. An example of this is Hamlet. This play is an iconic play of both the renaissance era and the era in which we live in today. It is also used to teach seniors in every high school. Other plays of Shakespeare such as Julius Caesar and Romeo and Juliet are also widely renowned and used to teach English in the school system. Though Shakespeare did not only write plays most of his poems hold the same if not more renown throughout the English community. These poems include the unique type of poem that Shakespeare was famous for which was the Elizabethan or Shakespearean sonnet. These sonnets are a tough type of poem to right because the writer/author of the poem is confined to certain types of rules.One of Shakespeare’s most famous sonnets is titled “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day”. This was one of the sonnets that were not titled, but the people who had the poems just titled it the first line of the poem; this is what is done to many untitled poems. Other than sonnets Shakespeare had written many other poems. Shakespeare was also the person who had changed the English language from middle to modern English. His courage to make new words that he wanted to and mold the language is the reason that the language is what it is today.

Sonnets

Sonnets, in my mind, are one of the most difficult types of poems to write. this is because you have to follow a specific set of rules when creating one. These rules are have a poem that is fourteen lines long, and follow a certain rhyme scheme. This rhyme scheme depends on the type of sonnet. If you are going to write a Shakespearean sonnet then you have to follow the iambic pentameter and the abab cdcd efef gg type rhyme scheme, though if you replicate another sonnet type such as a Petrarchan sonnet which has a rhyme scheme of abbaabba cddcece. Although these types of sonnet styles may be different, they were influenced by the culture of where they originate. Shakespearean in England, and the Petrarchan in Italy

A sonnet that I have read lately was a sonnet titled “Sonnet”. This sonnet is by Billy Collins. In this sonnet Collins takes all of the basics of the sonnet, and makes a sort of joke out of writing these sonnets. At first he mentions the fourteen line necessity then he goes off to say how the rhythm might go in some of the other sonnet types such as iambic pentameter. Collins also puts in a line about how Petrarch needs to put down his pen and go to bed. This line tells me without knowing too much about Petrarch that he needed to calm down on his poem writing because he was writing too much and go to bed. This is what I have seen in this poem, and here it is:

Sonnet

All we need is fourteen lines, well, thirteen now,

and after this one just a dozen

to launch a little ship on love's storm-tossed seas,

then only ten more left like rows of beans.

How easily it goes unless you get Elizabethan

and insist the iambic bongos must be played

and rhymes positioned at the ends of lines,

one for every station of the cross.

But hang on here while we make the turn

into the final six where all will be resolved,

where longing and heartache will find an end,

where Laura will tell Petrarch to put down his pen,

take off those crazy medieval tights,

blow out the lights, and come at last to bed.

Billy Collins (b. 1942)

How Far We've Come

                “What goes on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three legs in the evening?” This was the question asked by the Sphinx directed toward the man of Greek mythology named Oedipus.   It may be an easy riddle to crack, but it describes the human life quite well. Most humans go through their early years of life not knowing what they are going to do or where they are going to go. Then there are others who know exactly what they are going to do for the rest of their lives and how they are going to get there. I am not one of those types of people. I have no clue where I am going in life, but that is the way I like it. I can live my life and everything will be played out. I hope I get a good job and make decent money, but that may not happen. Even if it does I will know it was because I made a bad choice. Now you may be reading this and think to yourself where is he going with this, and to that I would like to say look at the title. Then look how far you have come in your life I know it felt like it was just yesterday and I was walking into my first day of kindergarten now as a senior I feel that I have come a far way and accomplished a lot through those years. I also look forward to where my life will take me, and I encourage you the reader to do the same.

Imagery

                In writing imagery is one of the most important parts of that piece of writing. This imagery can help the reader imagine the setting that the story is taking place in. Imagery can be all sorts of different things that inform the reader what is happening within what they are reading. Examples of different types of imagery are olfactory-smell- imagery or gustatory-taste- imagery, or auditory-sound- imagery. All of these different types of imagery give the reader a better understanding of what is happening within the story. Even if the book is minimalistic imagery is needed in the book. For example The Road by Cormac McCarthy; this book is set in the time period of the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse, and is a minimalistic book, though it has great imagery to show how horrifying the world is.

                Imagery is also needed in smaller pieces of writing such as poetry. Even though a piece of poetry may be small they usually are jam full of imagery that helps the reader understand the poem more fully. Sometimes the imagery may be more difficult to pinpoint in these pieces of poetry, but that is why poetry takes more thought to read. It is also more non literal than normal prose. A poem that uses imagery to its advantage and paints a beautiful picture or pictures in your head is “To Autumn” by John Keats. This poem utilizes the use of imagery to its advantage, and has a beautiful seasonal scene.

Here is the poem:

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,

Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

John Keats (1795-1821)

Scholarships

 Scholarships have been seen as “free money” to spend on things while you chill in college, but that is not what scholarships should be they should be “free money” that helps you achieve the career that you are looking to do in your life. The money you gain from these scholarships are based on many qualities that a person may possess such as a person’s grade point average, if they play a sport that can transfer over into a sport that a college provides, or something as simple as writing a birthday card to a homeless child. These scholarships can help people gain money to get into college whether you want to be a doctor, NFL player or a social worker.

Scholarships can also help people gain jobs after they have left college. I know this sounds weird, but as someone gains scholarships they help build a portfolio for that person. With this portfolio a person can show how dedicated to getting into the field that they are looking to spend their life in. Scholarships such as the Presidential scholarship displays to an employer that the person who gained this scholarship is a hardworking and very intelligent person that is most likely going to help the business. Other scholarships such as the scholarship that a person gains if they write a birthday card for a homeless person might inform an employer that that person is a nice person that cares for others.

Although scholarships do not have to be all of these things, they do help a person that is looking to go to college, and make themselves a career.

Achievement Unlocked

                Achievements are being given for anything in the modern times, whether it is for participating in a soccer team or gaining level one hundred in smithing in Skyrim –an adventure role playing video game- achievements are rewarded. Though are achievements may be hard to get in some cases, there are other cases that achievements are just given out for just showing up for example earning a medal for participation on a soccer team.  The person how received this medal may have worked hard for this achievement, yes, but are medals and achievements given out too often?

 In earlier years of the United States and the world achievements were something that someone worked hard for, and they were given to very few people who earned them. This had inspired a competition that sparked people to try to work harder to be better than their peers. This competitive edge was one of the factors that helped build countries. Since so many achievements are given out many do not mean anything to some people, although there are still some achievements that people look up to or try hard to beat their peer to try to attain. With all of the achievements people tend to become less competitive. With some schools not having a valedictorian, and just having a top ten the people that are in the top ten would most likely not strive to gain a higher rank in their class because they will already receive the achievement of the top ten.

These are the reason why I believe that there are too many achievements and awards that people can attain that the value of attaining one of these achievements may be less desirable. I also believe that since there are so many awards given out the competitive edge of the world is lessening to a small minority of people.

The Ballad of Birmingham

                The Ballad of Birmingham is a symbol of the racial tensions in the southern United States during the 1960’s. The poem depicts a young girl asking her mother to attend a freedom march in Birmingham, Alabama. When her mother tells her that she may not attend, the little girl decides to attend a Sunday school service as of her mother’s wishes. At this Sunday school service a bomb had been planted and killed the girl. The irony of how the mother thought that going to church was more safe than going to a freedom march had implied how dangerous it was in the 1960’s for African Americans of the south, by implying how nowhere is safe, not even a church. With this connection to this time period the reader can understand the poem more fluently.  This poem had also been a way to get the message out with a different type of style than a newspaper or broadcast.

                My thoughts on this poem are that it is a nicely written poem, in the form of a folk ballad, and it has a great historical background, although I am no expert when it comes to poetry. I also think that it is a unique way of spreading the word across a large area. It reminds me of how the ancient Greeks used to tell their folk ballads and epic poems all over the country.  This poem also reminds me of how far the American culture has come with racial differences, yes there are still acts of racism or hate crimes being done, but there have been major advances towards equality.            

Now the poem:

“Mother dear, may I go downtown

Instead of out to play,

And march the streets of Birmingham

In a Freedom March today?”

“No, baby, no, you may not go,

For the dogs are fierce and wild,

And clubs and hoses, guns and jails

Aren’t good for a little child.”

“But, mother, I won’t be alone.

Other children will go with me,

And march the streets of Birmingham

To make our country free.”

“No, baby, no, you may not go,

For I fear those guns will fire.

But you may go to church instead

And sing in the children’s choir.”

She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair,

And bathed rose petal sweet,

And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands,

And white shoes on her feet.

The mother smiled to know her child

Was in the sacred place,

But that smile was the last smile

To come upon her face.

For when she heard the explosion,

Her eyes grew wet and wild.

She raced through the streets of Birmingham

Calling for her child.

She clawed through bits of glass and brick,

Then lifted out a shoe.

“O, here’s the shoe my baby wore,

But, baby, where are you?”

                Dudley Randall (1914-2000)