The Crucible Beliefs

Over the past few weeks my English class has been reading the play, The Crucible. This is an amazing story that involves the Salem Witch trials and what actually happened during them. One of the main characters, John Proctor, faces a life or death situation when he is convicted of working with the devil and he can either confess and be set free or stay strong in his beliefs and be hanged. John Proctor makes the hard decision and decides to stay true to his beliefs and be hanged. I agree with the statement "it is better to die for what you believe in rather than save your life." The reason I agree with this statement is because of my belief in God. My Faith in God is very strong and if I was to be in a situation where I had to deny God or die for God, I would make the decision to die for my beliefs. The statement "it is better to die for what you believe in rather than save your life." applies to my life in many ways but the main reason I believe in it is because of my belief in God.

We are Flawless to Him

Anne Bradstreet, a famous poet, uses many different literary technique’s to describe her love of God in “Upon the Burning of Our House.” Bradstreet’s poem was very well written and made me want me to think about something that inspires me as God inspires her.  A song that motivates me everytime I listen to it is "Flawless" by Mercyme.

No matter the bumps

No matter the bruises

No matter the scars

Still the truth is

The cross has made

The cross has made you flawless

No matter the hurt

Or how deep the wound is

No matter the pain

Still the truth is

The cross has made

The cross has made you flawless

My favorite line in this song is “The cross has made you flawless” because it doesn’t directly say it but this song is basically saying that we are flawless to our God. These lyrics are very heart warming and very inspiring for many reasons. This song gives me the reminder of the fact that Jesus did die on the cross for me and He did make me whole again. Every time I hear this song I remember that I have no reason to doubt God or doubt the things that happen in my life because He has a plan for me and I know whatever happens has a reason. The plan that God has for me might not be evident to me now but I can always listen to this song and I remember that He is working on my life and what's in store for me. 

My Amazing Grace

In English class, we have been watching a movie called Amazing Grace. This movie is about a man named William Wilberforce who fights for his whole life to abolish the slave trade and in the end, he accomplishes his goal. This story inspires me because their are many goals I would love to accomplish in life. One of the goals specifically would be to have children. Having children might be a very common goal but I have always wanted to have a family. Getting married and having children has always been one of my major goals and I hope to work for it and accomplish it one day just like William Wilberforce accomplished his goal.

https://pixabay.com/en/success-road-sign-traffic-sign-479568/

Three Main Goals for my Junior Year

High school has flown by and I cannot believe I am already A Junior! I am so excited for this school year and I cant wait to see what God has in store for me. This past week has already been very good because of a mix of things including cheer leading, friends, and just school in general. I have a few goals for this year and one of them is that I want to become closer to the people around me. I have a lot of classes with some people that I never even speak to so I want to be able to have conversations with those people and become good friends with them because you can never have too many friends. Another one of my goals is to raise my GPA, I know that this can be challenging but I am ready for a challenge and I am prepared to do well in all of my classes. Finally, my last goal for Junior year is to become closer to God, over the summer I become very close to Him and i'm so excited to see my relationship grow with Him all year long! I'm not even a week into junior year yet and I can already tell that it is going to be one amazing year!

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Friends_(letras_brancas,_fundo_preto).svg 

Looking back on Freshmen Year

My Freshmen year has been so fun but it has also gone by really fast. A lot of things have happened during Freshmen year but my overall favorite memory would have to be the Washington D.C. trip. I got a lot closer with my friends on that trip and getting to tour and see very important things was fun. I have also learned a lot during freshmen year, I have learned how to be a better friend, I have learned how to somewhat handle high school, and I have also learned a lot academically. High school isn't as bad as some people say it is but there are still a lot of changes. If I could give an upcoming freshmen three pieces of advice, I would tell them to make sure they always turn in homework, that is really important. I would tell them that they can't try and be friends with everybody because not everybody will be accepting of you, you just have to find the people who truly love you for you. Lastly I would tell them not to worry if people are saying mean things behind their back because that will continue to happen no matter what you do, you just can't let it get to you. Freshmen year was very fun and i'm going to miss it but I cant wait to see what the next three years have in store for me.

Physical Abuse in Miss Jane Pittman

During the unit of Miss Jane Pittman I learned that is never right to hit someone. It does not matter the color of their skin. When Jane Pittman was alive, she got whipped for not doing what she was told. She should have had her own rights and I learned that physical abuse is never right.

Trifles Explanation

In our detective story unit we read three stories, Full Circle, Wasps's nest, and Trifles. My favorite story out of those three would have to be Trifles because I love the story line and I liked how the ending was not revealed and it kept the audience guessing. In Trifles there is a lot of foreshadowing such as all of the symbols that are shown in the story. Some of the symbols would include the broken bird cage door. That could Symbolize how Minnie Wright finally got free but she did it in a very violent way by killing Mr. Wright. Trifles also has a lot of suspense. The women keep finding clues that the men didn't find and you never know what else the women are going to find or how the story is going to end. The characters in Trifles are very different from characters that you would see in a normal detective story, such as Minnie Wright. The audience does not know for a fact the Minnie Wright committed the murder but if she did commit the murder, she didn't act like a normal murderer would act. Minnie acted very calm and kind of shocked. A long with the way Minnie acted after the murder they're a lot of things that show that Minnie could have been unhappy before the murder also. A clue that Minnie could have been unhappy in her marriage before the murder is the half clean table, the clean side could symbolize Minnie's happy life before the marriage and the dirty side could symbolize her unhappy life after she got married. I liked this story a lot because of all the foreshadowing it had and how the author kept the audience guessing. I would recommend this story to anyone.

The Giving Tree

When I was A child, my favorite childrens book was The Giving Tree. I always wanted my parents to read me this book because I liked it so much. I liked this book because it had a really good story line too it, it wasn't a funny book, but I still loved it. I also remember the book very well because my grandmother used to read it to my dad when he was little so I remember how the book has been read to me and my dad. 
The author of The Giving Tree is Shel Silverstein. Shel wrote a few childrens book but his most famous were The Giving Tree and A Giraffe And A Half. To find out more about Shel Silverstein and his work, you can visit these websites: http://faculty.weber.edu/chansen/humanweb/projects/MeghanUng/biography.htm
http://www.biography.com/people/shel-silverstein-9483912

Animal Farm Theme

Animal Farm is a book that has a lot of different things going on at once so there are a lot of different themes that I could list. But I think in Animal Farm the most important theme would be to not let people get in your way and don't let people have too much control over you, and don't always trust everybody. I think this is a good theme for Animal Farm because when them animals sent Mr. Jones away, the animals said that they were all going to be equal but that didn't happen. When Napoleon started to be in charge the animals thought that it was normal to for Napoleon to act the way he did, they thought it was normal for him to take away privileges. I think if the animals would have known that this is not normal behavior for a leader to have, they would have done something about Napoleon. I think the animals would have trusted him a lot less if they knew what was actually going on. Not always trusting people would be a really good theme for this book because in Animal Farm, you can see where trusting everybody can lead you down the wrong path. 

 Photo By Scott Maxwell

What I am thankful For

Thanksgiving is the time of the year when you really look around and see all the wonderful things that you have that other people don't have. I am thankful for a lot of things including my family and my friends. I am so thankful for my family, they are with me through everything and I would not be at the place that I am without them. I am also beyond thankful for my friends, I would be absolutely nowhere without them. Another thing I am thankful for is my school, I have been at DCA since I was in kindergarten and I would not want to be anywhere else. Thanksgiving is A wonderful time of the year, I love to give to the less fortunate people and I love being able to thank God for all the things that I have.

Modern day actors in Julius Caesar

There are a lot of actors that could replace the characters in Julius Caesar but there are a few that I think would fit best. I think Jim Carrey would play a very good Cassius just because Jim Carrey has a kind of powerful but fun type of personality in his movies and I think he would play Cassius very well. I have thought a lot about who i think could play Brutus and I think the best fit for him would be Will Ferrell because in most of Will Ferrell's movies he is powerful and laid back just how Brutus is. As for Antony, I think Jack black would be a goof fit for him because in the Jack black movies that I have watched, he always has a friend that he is loyal to just like Antony was loyal to Caesar. Last, for Caesar I think his best fit would be Al Pachino because in all of his movies, Al is very powerful and gets what he wants most of the time, but he can also be down to earth at times.                             Photos by Henry Stroud

                                                                                 

Battles in Julius Caesar

I did my project on the Battles in Julius Caesar. I did my project by researching the maps of the battles of Philippi. After I researched those maps I put information on the board about why the maps look the way that they did and why they took the routes that they did. I also included information about what happened at the Battles at Philippi. I learned some things from this project that I didn't learn from the book, such as when Cassius killed himself, some people thought it was because he couldn't deal with loosing the war but it was actually because he thought Tinnitus had been captured. I think this project helped me learn more about The battles in Julius Caesar and i think that everybody else's project helped me learn things about Julius Caesar and the ancient Roman times that I have never known before.

If there was such thing as a demon pig

If there was such thing as A demon pig, I would imagine that it would be walking around it's farm all the time trying to kill people. I think its owner would pick up on the fact that it is a demon one day and he would set it free. After the owner sets the demon pig free it would go wild in the woods and kill everything in its path. After it gets done killing everything in the its path people would not be able to hunt and every time people would try to hunt, they would be attacked by the demon pig. After a sometime of the demon pig killing people in the wild, the population of that state would go down and the animal population would go down a lot. If that happened then someone would have to risk their life to kill the pig. if they succeeded then there would be nothing to worry about but if the person trying to kill the pig didn't succeed, then there would be a demon pig running in the wild for the rest of eternity, and that is why I think the demon pig is the most scary animal combination.

                                                      Photo by Roger Waters

Friendships

Friendship is something that everyone should experience all the time. I love my friends. First, I got to know a lot of new people that came to Dca. My friends are the reason I get excited to come to school everyday. Friendship is rough sometimes but every type of relationship is going to have it's bad times. I love to have my friends around me all the time, because they make my day one hundred times better. Every time I have a bad day my friends are always there for me. I would say Friendship is an awesome thing. 

photo by Redenchilada 

My favorite Bible Verse Romans 8:28

My favorite Bible Verse is Romans 8:28 "And we know that all things God works for the good of those that love him, who have been called according to his purpose." This is my favorite verse because it explains why God helps the people that he does. If you love God then he is working for you because you work for him. This is also my favorite verse because it tells you that everything will work out if you love God and believe in him.

Photo by: UnlockingTheBible

Summer Reading

While the class was going over the Literary elements for The Outsiders, I learned a lot about how the book was written. It was written in 1st person because there was a narrator actually telling the story. I never understood that before. I also learned a lot about 3rd person and how that means that someone is telling a story about the main character. I'm glad that I learned those because they will be very useful in high school.

My School year Accomplishments

This year in 9th grade I would like to accomplish a lot of things. First of all, I would really like to get great grades.Honor roll is my goal. I have always had the goal of Honor Roll and I hope this year in 9th grade I can achieve it. I would also like to make a lot of new friends. I have a ton of friends but there are people that i'm not close too that I would like to be close to. Friends are what make school fun, that's why I want to have a lot of friends. I'm not quite sure what my spiritual goal is for this school year. I always want to be closer to God. The reason I want to be closer to God is because he helps me a lot through stress and it makes me feel so much better to be closer to him. Hopefully this year he will guide me to be closer to him.

Photo by Sal Falko