Base Theme

In 1938 John Steinbeck wrote in his journal, “In every bit of honest writing in the world there is a base theme. Try to understand men, if you understand each other you will be kind to each other. Knowing a man well never leads to hate and nearly always leads to love. There are shorter means, many of them. There is writing promoting social change, writing punishing injustice, writing in celebration of heroism, but always that base theme. Try to understand each other.” Comment on this quotation, as it relates to what you have read in Of Mice and Men so far. Take into consideration all that you have learned about literary elements. 

• I believe that John Steinbeck's quote contradicts with what I believe in. In fact, it's almost the opposite of what I believe in. Knowing a person more and more does not always lead to love. I believe that the actual situation depends on the person's personality, instead of depending on someone knowing someone or not. You might even come to hate a person more and more as you know them due to their personality. 
• Relating to the story, I believe that George would have the same opinions and point of views as me. This is because referring to George's darker, sharper, and more pessimistic character, he would think more negatively of people, and think of hate instead of love. He dislikes Curley's character, and after only one day, finds that he dislikes him even more and more. As for Lennie, I am not that sure. He is more simple minded and optimistic than George, so he might love people more and more as he knows them, if they have a personality that Lennie likes. However, with the same case as George, Lennie might not like Curley because even him, a simple minded person, could sense that Curley is very mean.

Magic Pictures

Look at the illustrations in your textbook on pages 356, 359, and 361. Choose one, or write about all three. Describe the picture(s) using specific sensory details. Then explain what elements of magical realism are in them (if any). Can you relate anything in the pictures to the story “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings”?

• The illustration that I am going to talk about is the one on page 361.
• For the sensory details, the first word that comes to my mind when I see the illustration is "nature". There is a blue sky as the background, with green forests right under the blue sky. Up front, we can see a row of rocks that was formed by nature herself. However, the next word that comes into my mind is "weird" or "strange". This is because on the left had side of the illustration, there is an artificial like moon. The moon is mainly white, but contains faint colors of orange and yellow. This is supernatural, or "magical", because it is extremely unlikely for a moon to be sitting on one of the rocks that seem very high above ground, in nature. 
• My first thoughts of the moon was that, "the moon fell from the sky". But after some connection, we can think of it as mankind and other man made things taking over and destroying nature. Perhaps, a long time ago, people believed that it was impossible to destroy nature, for nature was Earth itself. However, right now, the possibility of mankind destroying nature is extremely large.

Magic Realism

Many young readers have a problem with magic realism. Despite it being an establish genre since the early twentieth century, and one that has received many accolades (such as the Nobel Prize), for some reason many inexperienced readers find it difficult to understand and appreciate. Why do you think that is? Do you have difficulty with magic realism? If so, can you explain it? If not, why do you think others do?

•  Young readers do not understad the meaning behind stories that include magical realism. Usually, when they read stories that include magical realism, young readers think only think thoughts such as "This is totally nonsense! I don't know what it's talking about!" or "There's no meaning to this stupid story at all!" Young and inexperienced readers cannot understand the moral or theme of the story because they have not experienced much in life yet. This is why they cannot understand. Also, they have not faced hardships that more experienced people may have faced before that is needed for understanding the story's meaning. 
• I am like most young readers, finding stories including magical realism really hard and difficult to understand. There are a few reasons for this. FIrst. most stories including magical realism do not include a very clear plot, and for someone like me, I do not enjoy any story without a good and interesting plot. Because there is not plot, the story becomes quite monotone since it is without an obvious goal. Stories like these make me fall asleep, so I usually do not read them. The last thing is that these stories do not teach an important moral or theme, which makes it more monotone.

The Unexpected

Think of an unusual or startling event that you witnessed. Write a paragraph about how you reacted, and speculate about whether you would react the same way if the event occurred again.

• When talking about unexpected events, one immediately came into my mind. Just this morning, on the way to school, on Guang-Fu Road, I saw a car accident. A car had bumped into a motorcycle. I did not expect to see an accident this early in the morning. Several police, about 3 of them, were there regulating the traffic and inspecting the damage.
•  I was first shocked, but then the shock turned into sadness. I was quite comforted and happy to see that, fortunately, no one associated or not associated with the car accident had been injured in the accident. However, contradicting this happiness, when I think of other more serious accidents at occur quite commonly, I feel very down and depressed. Because people are careless, accidents occur, and many innocent lives have to sacrifice themselves to pay for the carelessness of other people. 
• I am very sure that if I saw another car accident, whether it's serious or not, I would feel quite depressed. As for shock, it depends on whether I have heard about the accident beforehand or not.  If I had not heard about it beforehand, I would be shocked, but if I had heard about it beforehand, I would feel very depressed.

Ode

An ode is a lyrical verse written in praise of, or dedicated to someone or something which captures the poet's interest or serves as an inspiration for the ode. You can write an ode to just about anything: your mother, happiness, toast, or a pair of old socks. Think about what you might want to write an ode about. Write down everything that you can think of about your topic. Try to come up with strong descriptive words that make clear images (colors, shapes, smells, tastes, sounds, and emotions). Don’t worry about writing complete sentences or paragraphs, just let the ideas flow out of you. 
 
 Figures of Speech

• personification
• metaphors
• simile
• rhyme
• internal
• end
• slant
• assonance
• consonance
• alliteration

• Ode to My Computer
•  shiny
• silent/occanionally chatter
• rectangle
• calm
• blue/silver
• efficient
• friend
• Ode to My Pillow
• milky white
• soft
• flexible
• bouncy
• rectangle
• changes shape
• smell of shampoo
• excited
• bouncy
• Ode to Human Nature
• calm
• cruel
• repetitive
• happiness
• depressing
• exciting
• unpredictable
• emotional
• kind
• Ode to Destiny
• unpredictable
• fear
• anticipation
• connects everything
• breaks people apart
• puts people together
• reunite each other
• plays games with us

Another P.O.V.

Write about which character and scene you want to use for your writing assignment on The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Answer questions like, why did you choose this character and scene? What does your character look like? What kind of personality does he or she have? How does his/her attitude toward the situation differ from Christopher’s? What effect does Christopher’s words and/or actions have on your chosen character?

•  The scene that I chose to write my assignment for is the scene where Mrs. Alexander talks to Christopher at the park (p. 53 - 61). I chose this particular scene because it is an important scene where Christopher learns the truth about his mother, and the reason why he knows where his mother is. This leads to him going to find his mother in London when he is afraid of his father. Also, this is important because this is also one of the reasons why Christopher fights with his father.
• My character looks like an elderly woman who looks pretty wise and nice. Her personality and role in the story symbolizes a mother's affections, and she is also a sympathetic person. Mrs. Alexander's attitude about the situation is different from Christopher because while Christopher does not have a lot of feelings about the situation, she is very sympathetic towards him and what he is going through. Because of Christopher's words, actions, and the general situation he is in, Mrs. Alexander pities him a lot and feels very sympathetic towards him, and she wants to become friends with him so he can feel more loved, and not as lonely as before, even though Christopher does not understand.

Holiday Reality

Your last journal entry was to be about what you would like to do for your holiday. Today you will write about what you actually did over the holiday. Then, write a brief compare and contrast essay discussing how what you wanted to do was like what you actually did, as well as how what you actually did was different from what you hoped to do.

• My holiday was quite similar to what I expected it to be. First, I gambled everyday. I played mostly mahjang, and also some poker. I won quite a lot of money during the holiday. The next thing I did was watching television. Basically, I didn't watch any specific type of television. I watched whatever my family watched. The only movie I remember clearly is Harry Potter - The Order of the Phoenix. It was alright. The second thing I am sure that most people did - eat. My grandmother cooked a lot of different delicious foods, and we also went to department stores to eat our lunches for two days out of the holidays. I did do exercise for basketball team. However, I did them only during the night, because during the day, I was too busy gambling with my family. I also went walking the dog during the day with my cousins and my grandfather. This was something that I didn't expect before the break. The last thing about the holidays include homework. In the end, I didn't get to do a lot of homework because I spend most of the time gambling and just relaxing. I finished part of my algebra homework, didn't have time to do chemistry, and couldn't not do my AP Biology homework because our biology teacher didn't put the homework online. Overall, it was a nice break.