People are always telling us to be ourselves, but they discriminate people who stray from social norms. What's the message here? Are you saying that I can only be myself if i'm "normal"? What is "normal"? Is normalcy based on the majority? What if the majority of the people in the world had brain cancer? Does that make having brain cancer "normal"? And if so, would the healthy people without brain cancer be shunned? Why is being "normal" so important in our society? If people think you are weird, they assume there is something wrong with you. Just because i'm different doesn't mean there is something wrong with me. I don't have issues. I mean jeez, you're the one with brain cancer.

Catcher in the Rye Review

Catcher in the Rye was odd to say the least. It was an easy read due to and insanely simple vocabulary, but was still quite confusing. The ending isn't explained very well. I was told the author probably did this on purpose. One moment Holden is fine, but next thing you know, He is in an asylum?

Finished Fahrenheit 451

I finally finished Fahrenheit 451. It took a while scrambling it with the rest of my school work and my own personal work (I'm writing a book of my own projectdreamer2014.blogspot.com ). The ending was really suspenseful and I simply couldn't put the book down after I started reading the last chapters. After I finished, it took a while for me to move back into reality. All in all, it was a great book and it really made the reader feel like something was at stake.

Memorizing Dover Beach

     Dr. Preston assigned a poem for us to memorize a while back. He showed it to us on the projector, in which the majority of the class responded to with sighs of displeasure. I was one of these people.The poem was titled "Dover Beach" and as Dr. Preston scrolled down through the several stanzas, it seemed to appear even more difficult and tedious. "How on earth am I supposed to memorize all of this?" I thought quite miserably to myself. " I can barley remember the names of people I see everyday." Obviously, I wasn't very enthusiastic about our new assignment, and neither was the rest of my fellow students.
     Some of the class seemed to give up as soon as they saw the poem. Dr. Preston asked for people to come up and recite it, asking for volunteers and eventually picking people from our crowded classroom. Most refused to stand up and give it a try, others got through only a few lines before pausing to look at our teacher for a hint. The fear of humiliation drew me to try over and over at the poem. I cringed at the intimidating cluster of words, some of which I didn't even know how to pronounce. I read over the poem several times before realizing it did little but help with pronunciation. I tried over and over, but when I looked away, I couldn't remember anything. I knew I had to do something different.
     Instead of taking the whole poem all at once, I focused on one line at a time. I read the first line, repeating it in my head. Then, I closed my eyes and said it to myself until I knew for sure it was locked into place. After that, I read the first and second line, reciting them together. I continued this until I had memorized the whole stanza. I continued this separately with the rest of the poem, reciting each stanza individually. Pretty soon, I had the all of "Dover Beach" completely memorized. It took two days for me to say it fluently without stuttering.
    I found that if you look at something as a huge challenge, you might get too scared to even try. It's better to take things in small chunks. I finally understood the saying "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time." I also learned from this that as we grow up, sometimes we loose some of our intellectual abilities. We don't have the same motivation to learn, because school makes it so complicated.
     When I was little, I could remember almost anything. I took part in plays and memorized whole songs after listening to them only a few times. I think all children start off like this. When we were kids, we wanted to know everything. So we let our curiosity lead us, and we experimented with life. We had all the passion and self-esteem in the world, and weren't afraid to make mistakes.This is because we knew that learning what doesn't work is just as important as learning what does. But as we grow up, we are taught that failure isn't an option. If we fail, we are punished and shunned. So people end up being so afraid of screwing up, that they hesitate at trying something difficult. We are molded to hide our curiosity and only try if we know we will succeed.
     I believe that is why so many people in my class were so unhappy about memorizing "Dover Beach". They didn't think they could do it. Society pushed them to think they shouldn't try, that it's too hard. This society needs to change. We need to encourage trial and error. We need to learn from our mistakes and celebrate our success.

Reading Fahrenheit 451 part 1

   Fahrenheit 451 is a novel by Ray Bradbury about a firefighter who begins to question his lifestyle and the world around him. I haven't actually finished this book yet, but I have to say I love it so far.This book was published in 1953, but the world in which the main character lives in is disturbingly close to ours today. The author predicted many of today's technology. He mentions small electronics that people keep in their ear that lets them communicate, listen to music, and disconnect from the world around them. He also talks about "parlor walls" that broadcast shows and advertising. These sound very close to ear buds and flat-screen televisions to me.

Welcome to my blog!

     This is my first blog as well as my first post. I hope to use this blog to showcase my progress and learning throughout the year. I will not just be posting my work from my English class, but also from many other fragments of my life. Please enjoy.