Hunger for Freedom

The book, Catherine Called Birdy, is a historical fiction novel written by Karen Cushman. This book shows a tough journey of a young girl named Catherine with the lack of freedom from family restrictions, inequality of men and women and the seeking power of the church. In this book, there are many times when Catherine gets frustrated for having no rights to control her life but instead get it controlled by her father. This is proved by the marriage she was forced to accept with the pig, Shaggy Beard. This also leads to the fact that in noble families, marriages are mostly controlled by men and the fact that during the time of middle ages, females were to stay home doing all the housework and had no rights for freedom. This is proved when at the beginning of the book, all Catherine did was sewing and she was sick of it. Not only did the men control their lives, but there was the church. This can be proved by all the saint days that were written in the book

and the fact that Catherine had to follow them strictly, not eating food that were restricted on some days. Catherine had a difficult and a tough time with all the chaos that were going on. Back then, life in medieval times was difficult particularly for a noble girl. Like many others, Catherine had no rights or freedom but to follow and obey the orders.

www.frontiernet.net/~mblow/images/Birdy%20images/birdy%20book%20cover.jpg

The Boy in The Striped Pajamas

No, I don't believe The Boy in The Striped Pajamas shows the Holocaust in the right way because it doesn't specifically show the terrible horror the Jews were in during the Holocaust. It should have mentioned more detailed descriptions about the concentration camps so that the readers could have a chance to reflect on their own and think about the huge disaster that was made in 1938. Showing the story in a child's eye view may interest the readers but most of the time it mainly talked about the house and the family and not much about the important bits such as father's job. This strategy also didn't touch much on The Fury and what they were behind. The author could have showed more of the times with Bruno and Shumel, and the interactions they had, where there were so many things in common between them yet more thing that were strangely different.

Although there were bits of important facts later in the book, there should have been more views of life of Jews. Why they didn't like them and why they couldn't be together is a question many people have been asking after the terrible war. The book should have had more focus on the terrible needs of the HOLOCAUST.

Holocaust Questions

1. Go to the website http://www.ushmm.org/. Go to the section that says education and click on for students. Then, click on antisemitism and analyze the picture. Why do you think there are TWO crows? What does the picture show you when you look at the faces of the Jews? What do you feel?

2. Read the second paragraph and place yourself in the position of the Jews. How do you feel and how do you think they felt when this terrible thing happened?

3. Go back to the home page. Click on Jewish life in Europe before the Holocaust. Read the third paragraph and give three good reasons why so many Jews lived in Germany.

4. Go back to the homepage. Click on Nazi rise to power and click on the election article. If you were Hitler, how would you be feeling right now and what would you be planning and going around in your mind?

5. How do you feel when looking at this article? Explain in detail.

6. Go back to the home page and click on the first concentration camps. What do you think is happening in the photo? Why do you think only one guy is wearing a white suit?

7. Reading the first six paragraphs of the writing, how do you think the Jews felt towards the Nazis when this happened? Do you think anybody tried to help?

8. Click on death marches and read the first paragraph. If you were back in that time and you knew the Jews were going to be killed, do you think you would follow the Nazis or support the Jews? Why?

9. Analyze the photo. What do you think is happening in the photo?

10. Reflecting on the terrible holocaust, do you think that if you existed back in that time period, you would have had the guts to stand up for what’s wrong? What is our big learning from this mistake we have made and have endured for a long time?

The Black Box, The Black Spot and The Blank Paper

I would title this story 'The Black Box, The Black Spot and The Blank Paper' because those three elements are very important in the story since the lottery (which appears a thousand times in the story) is all about these three main things. Also, these three main elements and not shown or told throughout the story, which created the main VOID for the readers.

As I read the story, I made a prediction that when something bad will happen to the person who gets picked in the lottery because everyone in the village seemed as though they wanted to get this over with and also get rid of it. They also thought that the one year went passed so quickly and if there is something good, you always feel as though time is so~ slow. 'Seems like there's no time at all between lotteries any more...'

When the end of the story was unknown, I felt as though my head was literally bursting with questions and tension to know more about the ending and what happened. There were questions in my head such as 'What will happen to Tessie?' 'What does the black dot mean?' 'Is this really the end of the story?' and etc. I was feeling very tense and desperate to find out what happens.

When I got the slip of paper and Mr. Housego told us that it contained the ending of the story, I was so tensed and curious why had to wait until 5 pm. For the whole day I couldn't forget thinking about the slip of paper. I also felt very relieved when I got the slip of paper and it didn't have a black dot, just in case it meant something bad. I followed the instructions and didn't open the slip until 5 pm because I was too scared that maybe if I don't follow the directions I might get myself into a huge mess.

I got so tensed as the story was reaching towards its climax and was so frustrated that I still had no clue of what the three elements meant; the black box, the black spot, the blank piece of paper. I knew the fact that all of them were very important, which made me go more wild since I didn't know how to put the story together. It felt like a huge empty space in the story that needed to be found in order to understand the story.

When I finally read the ending of the story, even though it was the 'end,' it still made me wonder for a little while about what exactly happened and if they actually stoned Tessie to DEATH. The author didn't really tell what happened to Tessie but he/she just showed it and the showing was done so well that I was terrified half to death.

My prediction was right about how I thought something bad was going to happen, but the ending was terribaly more horrifying than what I had imagined it to be. I thought they would just be seperated from their families, but they killed her! The ending was so horrifying that I can't forget it from my mind.

If the author had more repetition of the stones and gave more emphasis and impact on the children building up the pile of stones, I could have guessed that the lottery could do such terrible things to the villagers every year.

The author left so many VOIDS in the story because when authors leave one or more VOIDS in stories, the readers are going to read on and on into the story and get hooked in to find out what will happen next and how the story's going to end. The readers will also not forget about the story or even a book since they had so much tension while reading it.

In my opinion, there were two main powers of VOIDs in this story; No ending and Text clues and foreshadowing throughout. When there was no ending to the story, the reader was just left with thousands of questions of tension in their minds, which didn't allow them to realese since there were no answers given. Also, when the story kept repeating how bad a lottery was and about the black box, it really gave tension and curiosity as to know what happens in a lottery that is so terrifying.

This story was a great tale with so many strong powers of VOID that kept on making the readers desperate to read and know more.

Power of the VOID

The International School of Kuala Lumpur provides an exceptional education that challenges each student to develop the attitudes, skills, knowledge and understanding to become a highly successful, spirited, socially responsible global (silence...) citizen.

I put the VOID before 'citizen' because that whole paragraph wraps up into that one word, therefore, as the paragraph nears to the conclusion, the listeners will get excited to find out how the sentence will end, just like when you're finishing a book.

I put the tension there also because when it says 'global' before the VOID, since 'global' means the world, parents especially will get tense to know how their child/children are going to contribute in school globally.

The moment of silence here will get the listeners' attention because everyone will want to know how this esceptionally educated school will effect the students. Parents will want to know how their students will change and what good things the school will give to the students.

Finally, the VOID before 'citizen' will make the audience very curious and tense because there are 3 adjectives before the last word of the paragraph. This will feel like a crescendo to the climax since the adjectives create the word to be more interesting and when there is silence before the climax word, the audience would be questioning a lot about what is happening.

Composers create tension in music in many ways. Here are the three ways composers create tension adn strong VOID in their music.

One way is to have unexpected rests, rests especially before this huge climax and after a huge crescendo, just like Mozart did. This will surely make the audience wonder what happened to the climax.

The second way to create VOID is to take away many instruments to not play in a certain section, so that the audience will feel this empty space in the music and will want to fill the empty space of music.

The final way to create strong VOID and tension into the audience is to fade away at the end of the music. As one part stops after the other, when it gets to the conclusion of the music, the audience will be very surprised and wondering if there is another part of the music left...another part of the music for the huge fortissimo (climax).

“Unexpected, the Moment of Serendipity”

Guns, darkness, sadness, sorrow, depression, anger, loss, misery. All these unpleasant feelings that we would never want to experience are al found in Steve McCurry's photographs. He is the top traveler, photographer and humanitarian known worldwide who silently but deeply touches our hearts. Born in Philadelphia in 1950, McCurry began his journey around the world taking photos that touched thousands of hearts with unforgettable and memorable characters in the photos. His photos are eye-catching and heart-touching to the world, expressing the humanity of the subjects. "A great photograph really needs to say something about a person or give some insight into their life or how their life is different than yours and mine. A good picture makes us curious and makes us want to know more." -Steve McCurry- Steve McCurry’s photos mostly show the depression of environmental conflicts and difficult circumstances. McCurry struggled to reach his dream as a documentary filmmaker, travelling to a variety of different places around the world. In return for his hard work and compassion into his photos, McCurry proudly received eight awards with four first prizes. Steve McCurry’s photos still move lots of people’s hearts as they spread throughout the world.

Most of McCurry’s photos are classical balanced, meaning his subjects in his pictures are clearly shown. In this photo, the first thing that comes into your eyes is the girl holding a gun. Seeing that the size and height of the gun is about the same as the girl, it indicates that the girl is still young. The expression on the girl's face sinks deep into many people’s hearts which are depression, anger, horror, terror, hatred and sadness. The girl's eyes are unfocused. They are just staring into our eyes as if everything is hopeless, given up. Her body is stiff as a statue, showing the viewers that there is no freedom in her heart to be child-like. It shows that she is scared and fearful of something. The girl is holding the gun very tightly to her body like a precious treasure showing that she doesn't want to let go of something very important to her, maybe her family. McCurry used dark colors instead of bright eye-catching colors, which creates the dark mood in the photo symbolizing depression, tension and a nervous atmosphere. Those emotions are put together into one photo. Looking at the photo above throws such questions at us… ‘What are we fighting for?’ ‘Why is this war needed in this world?’ Through his photo, McCurry shows us how ignorant humans are killing each other with violence and absolutely no exception of the victims.

McCurry takes us on a journey when interpreting his photos of war and death, a reflection of our lives and thinking back on what unnecessary things and chaos we are creating. How ignorant we are when killing each other of greediness. McCurry’s photos may look simple, but contain deeper meanings and explanation in each photo. "...Most seemingly mundane activities can be inspirational when you look beneath the surface." -Steve McCurry- McCurry pours all his heart and mind into his photos and give the viewers a chance to think deeply and concern about what he is trying to tell through his photos. Through his magnificant photos, Steve McCurry invites us on an eternal journey around the world with the same dreams of serenity and the same wishes of hope.

Jason and the Argonauts Reflection

There are many different heros who went on difficult quests in Anicent Greek. Whenever a hero went on a journey, they often fit into the cycle of the hero. This cycle was created by Joseph Campbell, which shows the life cycle of a hero. Like most myths, Jason and the Argonauts is a good example of the cycle of the hero.

Birth/Home: Jason’s father was an honorable king named Ioclus, but Jason’s uncle, Pelias, took over the throne from him. Then Jason’s mother hid Jason from his uncle because she knew that Pelias will immediately give an order to kill Jason when he found out Jason was alive.

Call to Adventure: When Jason got older, he went to Pelias himself and ordered his uncle to hand over his throne. Pelias responded to Jason that if Jason brought him the Golden Fleece, only then Jason could take over the kingdom.

Elixir: The Golden Fleece was Jason’s goal and aim of the journey.Helpers: In the story, Jason’s helpers were the Argonauts. The Argonauts were a group of stron and powerful people such as Hercules.

Crossing the Threshold: In order for Jason to reach the Golden Fleece, he and the Argonauts had to go through the ocean and get to the kingdom of King Aeëtes. In the ocean they had a challenging time with the massive waves, and had to go through difficult obstacles, which made their journey even more of a challenge.

Helpers/amulet: For Jason, his best helper was Chiron and his sword. Chiron and the sword gave Jason hope to carry on the journey in difficult situations and supported him trust himself and believe that this journey was possible to accomplish.

Tests: Throughout the task for the Golden Fleece, Jason and the Argonauts went through many tests. Some examples are the dangerous clashing rocks in the ocean, the fire-breathing bulls, and the dragon that guarded the Golden Fleece. Each test showed how courageous Jason and the Argonauts were.

Climax/Final Battle: Jason’s climax of the journey was when he had a battle with Medea to save the Argonauts from going into the Underworld. Chiron’s sword was a huge help to destroy Medea, to free the Argonauts and to bring the Golden Fleece to Pelias.

Return/Flight: Jason and the Argonauts returned to Jason’s kingdom on a ship through the ocean and made haste to prepare for Jason to take over the throne from Pelias.

There are a huge amount of different variations for the myth, Jason and the Argonauts. In some myths, Aphrodite puts a spell on Medea to make her fall in love with Jason and help him throughout the quest. In other different myths, Medea is on the bad side and uses magic to stop Jason from accomplishing the quest. Another difference between the variations of the myth was Jason’s strength. In some of the myths, Jason is expressed as a weak hero and depended on the Argonauts for strength. But on the videos on the class blog, he is shown as a very courageous and strong hero. Even though there might be different thoughts to the myth, the story is basically the same; Jason going on a journey to get back his throne.

There are lots of evidences that indicate that this myth happened for real. Although I am not 100% sure, maybe Jason really existed as a person who went on a challenging task to take over the throne from his evil uncle. Here are some evidences I found while watching the video in humanities class…

· Mount Pelion does exist

· The myth happened at the time of the Trojan War, which is a true history

· Archeologists found the Argo ship that Jason and the Argonauts used and people could manage to build one for real

· The first quest took place on the real island of Lemnos, Greece

· The cliff where the Lemnian women murdered the men exists

· Jason and the Argonauts wanted to reach the Black Sea

· Istanbul, which is where they went exists

· There is a sacred cave with drawings of Jason

· Georgia is the “Land of the Golden Fleece”

· There is a drawing and a record of all the people who went on the quest.

. The bronze maze destruction, which was a historical artifact, was found by Archeologists