Death Penalty Arguments Response

     While it might be because of the order that we read the articles, I now find myself in favor of abolishing the death penalty. Where I stood before reading these two pieces was very ambivalent. I had heard both sides of the argument, but I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to take a firm stance on the issue. Now, though, I am leaning more towards the side of Bruck’s opinion rather than Koch’s. I found Bruck’s argument more convincing because it appealed to my sense of ethics. While Koch argued very well the possible ways that the death penalty can be considered morally right, I wasn’t totally convinced. It may not have been as much convincing as it was just my moral views, but I agreed more with Bruck’s views. Both arguments however had good logical appeals, and included some humor with them as well. The two major fallacies I noticed in these essays were Straw Man and Faulty Analogy. For example, when Bruck said, “[Koch] suggests that we trivialize murder unless we kill murderers. By that logic, we also trivialize rape unless we sodomize rapists.” I personally think the analogies made by both sides were fine, but a true stickler might say otherwise. Overall, both sides made very persuasive arguments, so it’s not by convincing but simply by personal inclination that I favor Bruck’s angle.

Analysis of Obama Immigration Speech

               Overall, I found the speech that Obama made regarding his propositions for immigration laws effective. Using various emotional and logical strategies, Obama made his ideas seem very reasonable, and at the same time made himself more relatable to all types of audiences.

                An example of appealing to all audiences would be the way that he opened his speech. He talked about America-- what a strong, developed country it is, and how we should all be proud to live in it. He accomplished two things by saying these things. First, he instilled a patriotic pride into his viewers, making them feel good about themselves. This complementing could be described as an emotional, or pathos, argument. The second way this argument works is, again, related to its patriotism. There are many rumors around that argue Obama doesn’t care about America, and that he’s not a “true American”, as if there even is such a thing. He attempts to dissipate these rumors in his opening, not by directly addressing them but by acting in the opposite way people say he does. If they say he’s a Muslim, he acts as Christian as possible (he quotes the Bible near the end of his speech). In doing this, he not only puts rumors at ease but also makes himself more relatable to the people who created the slander. One could say that, by acting like an ideal American, he argued through his character, or ethos. Using these two things lets Obama bridge the gap in-between him and his audience. He seems to relate to them, so they in turn relate to him. Because of the double-effectiveness of this patriotic approach, he uses it quite frequently. While a good argument for its target, I found it a little excessive as someone who doesn’t relate to a patriot. But then again, it doesn’t really matter what I think, it matters what most of the country thinks. Therefore, I found that acting patriotic was beneficial to convincing his audience that he had good ideas to propose.

                Another strategy I found effective was his use of imagery and repetition of sentence structure when talking about immigrants. He asked rhetorical questions, all basically asking “Are we a horrible, cruel nation, or are we America?” Image-creating phrases were used, such as “ripping a child from her mother’s arms”, and other family-related atrocities. While this could be argued as being an overly-sentimental appeal, it still could resonate with the soft spot in all of us. The majority of Americans have families, and would feel the most sympathy for the immigrants, just what Obama intended.

                Those are the two major arguments I noticed in this speech. The president weaved these sometimes-not-so-subtle appeals into his main point about immigration. Contrasting to the way Obama brought himself closer to his audience, the way he argued his proposals was very logical. I also noticed that he acted very maturely when he talked about congress, and how they had not let any of his bills pass. He made himself seem like the bigger-man in the whole situation, congress just being an annoying obstacle in innocent Obama’s way. But in a way this kind of over-maturity is ridicule, just in a less noticeable form. The only difference is that if Obama had made a personal attack on congress, a backfire would most likely have occurred. This is because most people know the fallacy of arguing against an opponent’s character when the opponent’s ideas are being argued, and would have called him out on that.

                The conclusion: I think this speech is effective for most people. There is a good balance of ethos, logos, and pathos arguments, hitting as many demographics and ethnicities as possible. Of course, there will always be the extremists, who couldn’t be convinced with any amount of bible-thumping. But still, for the moderates, people on the fence, or even those who already support him, Obama made a good argument for his immigration law proposals. 

Food at GS

              To describe my experience of the food at GS in 400 words is a little difficult. Not because it wouldn’t be able to fit all the rantings I have about how bad it is, but because I really haven’t thought about it that much. For me, the food has always been above par, or at least right on it. I’ve never been one of those hypocritical complainers talking about how bad the food is as they shove it in their mouths. I’ve just gone in, sat down, ate my food, and got out. That’s how it’s been for the past year and I have yet to be disappointed. In other words, it’s difficult, and maybe pointless, to write a 400 word paper expressing “meh”.

                But, maybe there is more to talk about here. Maybe the dining hall is more than just a place where animals get what they need then leave. After all, we’re humans, so practically everything we do has some sort of social aspect woven into it. Remember the whole “soy-nut butter” incident of last year? Part of me sometimes wonders if the protesters were having more fun yelling about it than they actually cared about bringing peanut butter back. We, as teenagers, are like unlit fuses of confusion and frustration. Any kind of change in the usual routine that lets us release these things will light that fuse, and so it did last year. Let’s think about what would have happened if this situation went down at a typical office. You can no longer get butterfingers from the vending machine. How would the workers have reacted? Maybe at first, politely asked the boss to bring them back, to which he would say something about the budget and shoo you out of his office, and that would probably be the end of it. Adults, more pessimistic about their worldview as they realize their age, wouldn’t have the same, self-centered rebellious spirit as teenagers would. They would suck it up and order something else from the vending machine. That whole incident of last year demonstrated that here at GS, we are free-thinking, non-passive beings who do not view the “boss” as the controller of our lives. This is the danger of liberal, Quaker teenagers.

                This brings me back to the complainers. Just as the peanut-butter protestors didn’t care as much about the issue as they said they did, maybe they don’t really dislike the food as much as they say. By exaggerating and sharing their ideas with others, they can all insult the food to their heart’s content—but still have to eat it. In this way, the dining hall is a kind of social punching bag that never takes any offense and will always be there for another zinger. It allows us to decompress, not just by giving us nourishment, but also giving us the enjoyment of making fun of it. We can all pretend we’re in this awful situation where we eat nothing but junk all day, and make ourselves the hero of our own tragic story. It gives us the motivation to continue, to rise up, and to rebel.

                So, all in all, I am appreciative of the dining hall. I thank it for the spirit it gives, and for playing its role as the perpetual villain we create to make us feel better about ourselves. I thank it for every bland dessert, and for every soggy piece of tofu. For every bone I find in the chicken, and for every food I’ve never heard of on its menu. And finally, for every time I go looking for a utensil and find none, eventually having to use a bendy plastic fork to try and cut a cold turkey meatball. Thank you.  

Religion In Class Essay- Mindfulness

          When comparing the poem “Mindful”, by Mary Oliver, and the bag scene from the movie American Beauty, one similarity comes to mind. In both of these artful expressions, key focus has been placed on the mundane. The normal, day to day commonplace of life holds a special meaning for both the poem and the movie. I believe that is because the writers wanted to show their audience what mindfulness really is. We always pay special attention to the beautiful things. The things that come rarely are always looked at more closely than everything else. This gives life a sputtering quality, sleeping during every normal day and jarring yourself awake for every special one. Living life in this way, like most of us do, makes us miss more important things than we realize. What is argued in both the movie scene and the poem is that every moment has a special meaning to it, and that being aware of every moment can make it more meaningful. Being mindful makes life more fulfilling and satisfying, just as slowly chewing and swallowing food is shown to be better than swallowing it whole.

                 Paying attention to every moment, though, is difficult. We are all so conditioned to conserve our energy, to ignore certain things and sleepwalk through life. Sometimes, especially when I’m tired, I find myself in a dreamlike state where nothing seems real, and I’m only drifting through a scene already played out in my mind. This kind of living is what makes us miss the truly important things.

                I would like to appreciate a simple thing, as the man in the movie scene did. But during regular life, it’s hard to see the true meaning behind every moment. How can the present be important? What was the point of staring at that bag?  But you have to realize that this moment will never happen again, and that once that bag floats away, you’ll likely never see it again. Every moment is like life. During its existence, it tries to effect as much as it can and be as loud and energetic as possible. But, even though it doesn’t know it, it is transient. Soon, the moment disappears, replaced by another, and another, until the day we ourselves perish. That’s why every moment and every person you encounter must be appreciated.

Macbeth- "The Time is Free"

     For me, the way I first interpreted this line is that Scotland is now free from the curse it was under during the reign of Macbeth. Like a spell being lifted, a burden has been lifted off of the people's shoulders, and now there will be good times ahead. Another way to interpret this is that time itself was kept prisoner under Macbeth's reign. With even nature reeling from Duncan's murder, it must have seemed like time was frozen during this nightmarish state, like it would never end. Now, time is free to move forward and go on like it's supposed to. Another way this line can be viewed is that the era of tyranny is over, and now the time of more freedom and order has begun. The time is now free, it is the beginning of a new era for Scotland. One final way this line can be thought of is that now there is no king to rule. With Macbeth dead and Malcolm not having yet assumed his rightful position on the throne, the government is in a bit of an anarchy. In other words, perhaps Macduff said this line to tell Malcolm to hurry up with making himself king, as there is no ruler currently.

9-24 Religion Assignment- Coltrane

     Coltrane’s spiritual revelation is very much related to the ones we hear about in Walsh’s book. Coltrane thought that he, as many spiritual stories say, is but God’s instrument. Like in the story about motives from our book, his motive was to give to others the greatest possession he had: his music. He played to make other people happy, he saw it as his gift to the world. During his recovery from his heroin and alcohol addiction, he promised God that if he could play music again he would be “a preacher on his horn”. I think this meant that he would follow good spiritual values from then on, and try to teach others to do the same through his playing. Overall, he was giving people his ultimate possession for them to enjoy: his music. This is a very humble way of living life, which Walsh would say is good for you spiritually.

            I admire Coltrane for having such dedication in life. Despite at one point being addicted to drugs, he had the willpower to bring his life back around to focus on what he really cared about. He let go of some of the attachments that were controlling his life. From then on, he didn’t let cravings of those things take away from what he really wanted to do. He knew that his purpose in life was to play, and I envy having that kind of knowledge. Never having to wonder what you want to do in life must be nice. Coltrane was sure that he was fulfilling his purpose in life and doing as much as he could. He knew what his passion was, and made his life revolve around it. I don’t know if Coltrane was happy in life or not, but if he was then I believe he fulfilled his purpose in life. He did what he loved, tried to help others, and was happy. As far as my view on life goes, that’s all you could ever want.

             

Macbeth Hamartia

     I think that Macbeth's hamartia is his lack of patience. Right after the witches gave their prophecy, Macbeth himself said that maybe if he just waited it out he could become king. Why, then, did he kill all these people to expedite this process? It could be argued that this is because of his wife's pressure for him to take action, but I believe it is because Macbeth doesn't have any patience. It seems he had faith in the fact that the witches prophecies would come true, but yet he still couldn't just sit around and wait for people to crown him king. This tragic flaw makes sense looking at Macbeth's background. He is a warrior, and warriors don't tend to wait around during the heat of battle. They're supposed to take action immediately, without forethought. I believe that this kind of way of dealing with problems reflects on the way Shakespeare has Macbeth act during the play. He doesn't really spend much time to stop and think, he just goes for his goal. This unwillingness to wait, among other things, could be the reason that some people see Macbeth as dim-witted.

English- Macbeth

     I believe that Lady Macbeth uses a baby in her argument because she may have already had a husband. Perhaps Macbeth was not Lady Macbeth's first husband, and she had a baby with the original. I believe this because if she had had a baby with Macbeth (which they clearly no longer have), then it would not be a guilt trip for Macbeth for her to mention it. It almost seems to me like Macbeth somehow took the baby from his wife, as she seems to imply that it is his fault she no longer has one. It could either be this, or she is trying to say that she has been through just as much hardship as Macbeth has, perhaps more. This brings me back to the other husband theory. It could be that the child died before it could grow up (this happened often in those days), something Lady Macbeth would have had to deal with but Macbeth hadn't. This could be how Macbeth's wife is trying to guilt-trip him into killing Duncan. She's saying, "You think you're having a hard time with this decision? I lost a child!" This could be wrong, but overall I have a strong feeling that this baby (which is not even confirmed to have existed) is a tragedy that Lady Macbeth went through, but Macbeth did not, or was somehow the cause of.  

Excersises to Reduce Craving

This is the edited version of another paper written for religion class:

9-14- Exercises to Reduce Craving Tyler 
     I really love unhealthy foods. Specifically, foods with ridiculous amounts of butter, oil, or salt. I know that this is unhealthy, and even though I don’t think I have an addiction to it, I figured I’d probably be better off if I at least tried to stop eating it so much. So to eliminate craving for salt and butter, I decided to try out exercise number 5: Indulge your Craving.

      My breakfast started out with a nice and greasy ham and cheese omelet, with some melted butter brushed on top. While eating it, I examined what I felt. I thought it was delicious, and couldn’t see how I could ever get tired of the taste. Lunch arrived, and I had two nice slices of oily pizza. Again, I did not feel any displeasure as I rapidly took bite after bite. But then, dinner came. We were having chicken and mashed potatoes. I grabbed all of the fatty dark meat I could find, and poured salt on it. Then, I put some potatoes on my plate and put a large chunk of butter on top of it, along with some more salt. Again I ate happily, but perhaps, I thought, I had put on way too much butter. As soon as I finished eating the Grand Finale of my salt-and-butter pig-out day, I began to feel sick. I felt bloated and unhealthy, and had a headache similar to one you get when you stare at a computer screen too long. I realized that this uncomfortable feeling of nausea was a result of all of the junk I had eaten throughout the day. The total change in feeling from pleasure to pain was surprising.

      From this day of indulging my craving for fatty, oily foods, I learned firsthand that too much of anything is bad for you. I felt so unhealthy after the experiment, and even now I certainly don’t see myself ingesting anything salty soon. Even though this method of getting rid of cravings seems illogical, it certainly works for many kinds of attachments.

Science and Religion

This is a revised version of a paper written for my religion class:        

9-4 Religion Assignment: Science and Religion Tyler

     In short, I agree that spirituality and science can get along. While I am not a very religious person myself, I have heard of many scientists who dedicate themselves to spiritual as well as scientific knowledge. In my opinion, religion and spirituality can sometimes be very different. Spirituality is what helps us relate better to people and ourselves. It gives us peace of mind and body, calms us. Religion encompasses spirituality, but also involves other information that has sparked conflict over the centuries. What I mean is, I believe spirituality and science can co-exist, but I’m not sure about religion itself. As of now, most religions are teaching things that science wouldn’t agree with (such as the creation of the universe), and vice versa. However, like Walsh said, nothing spirituality is teaching goes up against what science says. In fact, the two agree about the benefits of meditation. Also, Walsh mentioned that both science and spirituality test their claims through experimentation.

     While I try and stay out of the whole Science vs. Religion debate, it can be clearly seen that neither is willing to budge on their methods of finding knowledge. Religion calls for leaps of faith, while science experiments and takes little steps toward answers. Both methods have stood up to the test of time, lasting through the thousands of years. Overall, though, I believe over time religion will evolve so that it is less in conflict with science. The belief of a spiritual world, of a supernatural realm, will be around for a while, but as for all of the stories in the bible and other religious texts, I’m not sure they will be taken so literally in the future. Even now, more and more people are becoming nonreligious or converting to the eastern religions that have less do with stories but more about finding inner peace.

     Overall, I do not think religion itself and science can get along. However, I do believe that the “spirituality” Walsh writes about in his book can be followed by religious people and scientists alike.  

 

Prompt 10- Week 7 Novel Prompt

     The ending of Skippy Dies is definitely not something you could have predicted 100 pages before it happened. Honestly, reading the book I never thought about it ending. It was a long book, that not so much told a story but told many stories, including all the normal days that happened in-between them. For me, reading this book (something I haven't done since last school year) reminded me why I like (or rather 'used to like') reading so much. Murray is an excellent, intelligent writer. But anyway about the ending!

     Carl, the degenerate, was driven mad by his guilt and was seeing the dead boy, Skippy, everywhere. Reuprecht, Skippy's overweight scientist roommate, stress-ate and desperately tried to communicate to Skippy with increasingly insane experiments. Lori, Skippy's girlfriend, was also feeling guilty as she cheated on Skippy. She started taking diet pills and eventually had to be sent to a clinic as she was too sick to even stand. Everybody at Seabrook thinks Skippy was molested by Father Green before he died (even though, while very tempted to, he didn't). Carl, while on Heroin, is told by Skippy that he has to kill the "final demon", which Carl interprets to be the priest. Carl goes to the school and sets fire to Father Green's office, killing him. Carl eventually realizes that the demon is himself, and so he lays down in the smoke to die. However, he is rescued by the history teacher Howard Fallon. Reuprecht, who had recently ruined a school concert by trying to send an extremely loud musical message to Skippy, visits Lori. Reuprecht is planning on running away to Stanford, and Lori is planning on committing suicide. They have a long conversation, Lori talking Reuprecht out of moving away, and in that convincing her not to take her own life. Reuprecht leaves his box of stress-eating donuts behind, and Lori starts eating them.

     The message that came out for me in the entire third part (called Ghostland, taking place after Skippy's death) is that you cannot run away from the past. All of the students and faculty at Seabrook experienced this after Skippy died. While everybody else tried to cover it up, Howard was the only one who would deal with it. And yet, Howard was dealing with another form of running away. His relationships would immediately get boring because he was always looking for someone who would take him somewhere better; he didn't want his girlfriends to be just as bored as he was. This kind of running away, I think, is the moral of the book. Life's not going to be as good as anybody hoped, and it'll get no better elsewhere (well, said in a less depressing way).

Prompt 9- Week 8 Novel Prompt

     An object of symbolism I noticed in the novel Skippy Dies by Paul Murray, is the first World War. For the entire book, Howard the history teacher has been dwelling on this subject. Before Skippy's death, it was to remember Auriele, the substitute geography teacher he was in love with before she went away on a cruise with her fiancé. Now, it's to hold on to Skippy's memory, as his great-grandfather fought in the war. Howard finds it hard to let go of the past, as illustrated in this passage:

     "But Guido did not live with it. Guido moved forward. He wasn't about to let one fleeting episode determine the whole trajectory of his life thereafter. For Guido the past, like a Third Word country, was merely another resource to be exploited and abandoned when the time comes; and that is why civilization is built by men like him and the Automator, and not men like Howard, who have never quite worked out which stories are disposable, and which, if any, you're actually supposed to believe." (Skippy Dies, p. 574-575)

     After Skippy's death, the school's students became despondent. The school's officials had tried to sweep his death under the mat (as it was uncovered that Skippy's swim coach gave him pain killers and molested him), and the students were all trying to forget in vain. Howard is sickened by the teachers encouraging forgetting Skippy, saying that the students would not be acting up if they could just take some time to remember him. Nobody listens to this. One day, Howard feels suffocated in his classroom, and takes his entire class on a spur of the moment field trip. The minute they are outside the grasp of the school, Howard detects a noticeable change in the students.

     "Still, as they hang there in the weak, cloud-filtered light, shuffling a little, waiting for him to tell them what to do, they appear different to their everyday school selves -- younger, less cynical, lighter even, as if Seabrook were a weight that they carried, and set free of it they might just float off into the air..." (Skippy Dies, p. 551)

     Their surprise field trip leads them into a memorial park, built to remember the Irish soldiers who went off to fight in WW1. However, because of the tragic nature of their deaths, they were, like Skippy, deliberately forgotten. Howard is aware of the dead soldiers being symbolic of Skippy, and gives his students a great speech about remembering, and how that even when the soldiers realized the grand and heroic stories of battle were all lies, their bond of friendship remained.

     "That they stayed friends, that they looked out for each other, most agreed, was what kept them from cracking up altogether. And in the end was the only thing, was the one true thing, that was genuinely worth fighting for.'
     He smiles summative at the boys; they gaze mutely back at him, in their grey uniforms for all the world like an incorporeal platoon, materialized out of the winter clouds to scour the bare park for someone who has not forgotten them." (Skippy Dies, p. 557)

    

Prompt 8- Week 8 Poetry Prompt

     The first theme that comes to my mind when reading this poem is the waiting. Throughout the entire poem, Levine is waiting hours for something that he will never get. Maybe he relates this to life, how sometimes it just seems like you're wasting time going after nothing. In the waiting, Levine begins to miss his brother, and thinks about how long it's been since the two have talked. In the last lines of the poem, he says that to show love to your brother is work. For me, work has a bit of a double-meaning in this poem. For one thing, to work is not to wait. To work is not to spend your days mindlessly shuffling around hoping things will get better. As for the second, to work is to not take your family, friends, and relationships for granted. When the rain falls, which I guess would mean when bad things happen, Levine realizes just how much he wants to see his brother, to tell him that he loves him. To express that affection, according to Levine, is work. Overall, the message I get from this poem is to take life into your own hands. Don't just go through your regular routine or wait around every day, just hoping things will get better. Keep your friends and families close, because you'll never know when tragic things happen, and you'll need them. Do work.

Prompt 7- Week 7 Poetry Prompt

     For me, this poem paid tribute to Whitman in two ways. The first way is it's content. For the last two-thirds of the poem, Ginsberg walks with Whitman, and treats him like a father, a teacher, and a role model. And yet, somehow this poem also adds insults to Whitman's name. A childless, lonely old grubber, Ginsberg wrote. It could be that he respected Whitman so much that he wasn't afraid to add playful insults to his description. Or perhaps it's the complete opposite, who knows? The last four lines of this poem show the most admiration for Whitman:

         "Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America
          did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on
          a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black
          waters of Lethe?" (A Supermarket in California, lines 13-16)
    
     The second way Ginsberg pays tribute to Whitman is in this poetry's style. Like Whitman's, it has a unique kind of flow to it; it naturally rambles. Time is not wasted counting syllables or rhyming. That's not to say that this poem was written in a rush, it probably wasn't, it just has a bit more freedom than say, the Elizabethan poems. 

Prompt 6- Week 4 Novel Prompt

     Skippy anxiously awaits his first official date with Lori, focusing on nothing else except his daydreams of how it will go. One day, he finds a crowd of people around his locker-- it is on fire. Skippy knows that this is Carl, a dangerous, troubled individual who also happens to like Lori. All his friends now warn him that he cannot go to Lori's, but Skippy is adamant. Against all reason, he challenges Carl to a fight after school. Before the fight, Skippy gets a call from Lori imploring him to stop this. Skippy promises not to fight, through crossed fingers. At the place they arranged to fight, people's belief in Skippy dwindles-- there is no way a young, diminutive kid can fairly fight against a hulk like Carl. When Carl does show up and they start fighting, Carl's phone rings. He answers it, talks a bit in a low voice, and looks sour as he hangs up. The two resume the fight, and after Skippy lands one punch to the jaw, Carl goes down. Skippy's friends immediately whisk him away to his date with Lori.
    
     There were a lot of important points in this chapter, where the plot took an interesting turn. When the dreamlike-excitement for Skippy's date turned into stubborn indignation when Carl lit his locker on fire. Between Skippy's challenge and the actual fight, people treated him like a dead man walking, all the while shocked that such a challenge was even made.
    
     "All through class, faces keep flicking back to Skippy, scrutinizing him like he's a ten-foot lizard sitting there at the desk; and the day, which had been going so torturously slowly, begins to hurtle, as if time itself were panting to view the fight. Skippy tries to grasp on to the teachers' lessons, if only to slow things down. But it's as if the words themselves know they are not intended for him and pass him by. This must be what it's like being dead, haunting the living, he thinks. Like everything is made of glass, too slippery to hold on to, so that you feel like you're falling just standing still." (Skippy Dies, p.354)

     And then, after the fight itself, Skippy was once again overjoyed and excited.

     "And ten minutes later -- hair tamed, teeth brushed, irremediably shredded school jumper exchanged for a clean hoodie -- Skippy's leaving it again, pedaling Niall's bike uphill towards the gate. The rain has cleared and the clouds given way to a sunset that blushes deep and fiery, lush pinks and warm reds piled on top of each other in a breathy rushed jumble like a heart in love; and as he weaves out weightlessly into the traffic, leaving their final words of advice -- 'Full hardcore sex!' 'Just don't puke on her!' -- to disappear into the evening, the euphoria blossoms inside him at last, and with every yard travelled, continues, star-like, to grow." (Skippy Dies, p.361)
     
     I have a theory about the phone call Carl received. I think Lori called Carl to tell him to throw the fight. It may be a pessimistic view of it, but there is just no way an author willing to write about drug-dealing and intense violence in detail would make a fairy-tale ending to a fight. After all, Skippy dies! It's a little bit of a longshot for me to believe. The fact that Skippy even challenged Carl is unbelievable. Paul Murray related this to a poem by Robert Frost about following the road less traveled, which is exactly what Skippy did when he challenged Carl. 
    
     Reading this chapter more deeply really brought out what I love in this book. It has a great vocabulary, which may seem like an arbitrary thing, but turns the  dull colors of a hackneyed metaphor vibrant. It's as if the same idea when used with different words brings new life to it. When looking closer at this book, you can see that there are so many great descriptive and thoughtful sentences. Paul Murray is getting the most mileage he can out of each sentence, and he's clearly mastered this without making them sound too wordy. The tone of the analogies also changes with the mood of the character. The two passages above are the same in their complexity, but so very different in the feeling they express.

Prompt 5- Week 3 Novel Prompt

     There is a passage from page 31 through 37 that I found very interesting. It describes Howard's, a teacher and alum of Seabrook, relationship with his girlfriend Halley. I liked this passage because it was so spot-on about how most of the time seemingly fairy-tale relationships fall apart. 
    
     Before he went home, Howard stopped to talk to the substitute Geometry teacher. After talking, she out of the blue said, "You know, I'm not going to sleep with you,". This rattled Howard and made him think she really did want to sleep with him.

" 'He did.' She scans the back of the book. 'Looks interesting.'
  Howard shrugs non-committally. Halley leans back against her chair, watching his eyes buzz restlessly over the counter surface.
 'Why are you acting weird?'
  He freezes. 'Me? I'm not acting weird.'
 'You are.'
  Interior pandemonium as he desperately tries to remember how he normally acts with her. 'It's just been a long day -- oh God --' groaning involuntarily as she pulls a cigarette from her shirt pocket. 'Are you going to smoke another of those things?'
 'Don't start...'
 'They're bad for you. You said you were going to quit.'
 'What can I tell you, Howard. I'm an addict. A hopeless, pathetic addict in the thrall of the tobacco companies.' Her shoulders slump as the tip glows in ignition. 'Anyway, it's not like I'm pregnant.'
     Ah, right -- this is how her normally acts with her. He remembers now. They seem to be going through a protracted phase in which they're able to speak to each other only in criticisms, needles, rebukes. Big things, little things, anything can spark an argument, even when neither of them wants to argue, even when he or she is tying to say something nice, or simply to state an innocuous fact. Their relationship is like a piece of malfunctioning equipment that when switched on will only buzz fractiously, and shocks you when you're trying to find out what's wrong. The simplest solution seems to be not to switch it on, to look instead for a new one; he is not quite ready to contemplate that eventuality, however." (Skippy Dies, p.31-32)   

     For the next couple pages the book alternates between dialogue between these two and Howard contemplating their relationship. But of this above selection, I especially like the faulty machine analogy. When either of the two try to find out what is wrong, the other one shoots him or her down. In the later parts of this passage, the book elaborates more on why they're always arguing. The two are both unhappy with their jobs, and take all the pent-up misery and frustration home with them. They take it out on the other, when they know that they're just as miserable as they are.

     Overall, what I like about this passage is it's insight. It uses very clear language to explain to the reader what has happened to Howard's (and many other's) relationship.             
  

Prompt 4- Week 2 Poetry Prompt

Disclaimer: The 250 Poems: A Portable Anthology book I have is probably a different edition than the one the GS teachers use. The page numbers are off, and some of the poems that have been mentioned in the prompts do not appear in my book.

     The first thing I notice about these poems is that they are mostly about one thing. Nowadays, you can find poetry written about practically anything, but it seems that in the Elizabethan period they all focused on love. There is also very consistent rhyming in all of these poems, changing up the two rhyming syllables every four lines:
                                 "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
                         Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
                         Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
                         And summer's lease hath all too short a date;
                         Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, ..."
                         (Sonnet 18, William Shakespeare)
    
     You can notice how the rhyming does an ABAB, CDCD, etc. kind of thing. At the end of all the sonnets, though, it has two rhyming lines in a row:
                        "When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
                            So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
                            So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."
                            (Sonnet 18, William Shakespeare)  
    
     Considering all Sonnets are 14 lines long, it gives them this kind of rhyming structure: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

     The line length of these poems, however, differed. For all of Shakespeare's sonnets, the lines were all ten syllables long. But for another sonnet (Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show by Sir Phillip Sidney), all of the lines were twelve syllables. What interested me is that all of the Sonnets were very rigidly structured, having 14 lines, each ten/twelve syllables long, with very strict rhyming.

     I enjoyed Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare the most, because it was the most recognizable and the easiest to understand for me.

Prompt 3- Week 2 Novel Prompt

     The conflict in Skippy Dies is immediately revealed in the book. As one might infer from the title, a person, nicknamed Skippy, dies in a donut shop. The very first chapter describes this death, but it's more like an introduction because the rest of the book flashes back to the things leading up to this event. For the first 100 pages, there really is no conflict, as the book is just setting the scene and telling stories about the people at this school. As of now I am about 300 pages into the book, and the main conflict of the book might be starting to emerge. However, the way the narrative bounces back and forth between characters makes me wonder if this conflict is a major plot point or just another anecdote, thrown in for entertainment.

     Skippy is having a pretty tough life because his mom is dead (or he has some problem with his mother, the book hasn't quite said yet), and he's dependent on sleeping pills just to get through the days at his boarding school. One day, he spots a girl outside his window and immediately falls in love with her. Eventually, they kiss at a school dance, but afterward she disappears. Skippy finds out her number, but a bully, who also has a thing with this girl, knows about her and Skippy and smashes his head against a wall.

    This conflict seems like it could lead to Skippy's death, but I'm not sure yet. The author goes very in depth with all of the character's backstories, and analyzes situations in life that we all go through. With all that and the switching perspectives, it's hard to keep track of a linear, neat storyline.   

Prompt 2- Week 1 Novel Prompt

     An interesting character in the novel Skippy Dies by Paul Murray is Father Jerome Green. He is the French teacher at Seabrook College in Ireland, where he is known for having an air of dread around him.
     
     "Father Jerome Green: teacher of French, coordinator of Seabrook's charitable works, and by some stretch the school's most terrifying personage. Wherever he goes it is with two or three bodies' worth of empty space around him, as if he's accompanied by an invisible retinue of pitchfork-wielding goblins, ready to jab at anyone who happens to be harboring an impure thought. As he passes, Howard musters a weak smile; the priest glares back at him he same way he does at everyone, with a kind of ready, impersonal disapproval, so adept at looking into a man's soul and seeing sin, desire, ferment that he does it now like ticking a box." (p. 12-13)

     Among the students, and even some faculty at Seabrook, Father Green is  like the Grim Reaper: tall, thin, dressed in black, and having little to no kindness in him. He punishes students very severely and tries to scare them into being more devout. Paul Murray always uses very descriptive and metaphoric 
language when writing about him, especially with his movement. He has been described as smoke, knife-like, a pen stroke, and other dark, harsh things. In his classes, he is like a time-bomb about to explode on any given student. 
Overall, what Father Green wants is to teach people that God is not easy-going, and that lazy and spoiled people will be punished with eternal damnation.
   
     

Prompt 1- Week 1 Poetry Prompt

     This poem (When I was fair and young) is very structured. It has four main sections, each of them five lines long, the last two always being "Go, go, go seek some otherwhere," and "Importune me no more!". Most of the lines aside from those last two are 12 syllables long. Interestingly, the third paragraph's second line is only ten syllables, but then the fourth paragraph's second is 14. It's almost like the writer (Elizabeth I) was purposely balancing out a shorter line with a longer one. I could be completely wrong, but this structure reminds me of something my middle-school teacher said about Sonnets.
    
     There is rhyme in this poem as well. The first two lines of a section always rhyme, and the third line ends in an "oar" sound. This doesn't rhyme with the fourth line ("ere"), but it does with the fifth. So the pattern for the five lines in each section is pretty much A,A,B,C,B.   
    
     The message of this poem is that of remorse and regret from Elizabeth. When she was young, she had many suitors, but refused them all, thinking herself better than them. She hurt many people, but she didn't care. But then, she started getting older, losing her attention-giving suitors. After that, she grew very lonely, and wished she had never refused them.