Blog 6

First, I can not even begin to explain my anger towards the video clip we saw about the family going to the funeral of soldiers.  It completely infuriated me to the point I wanted to find all of those people and beat them up!  I find it completely contradictory for people of God to show such hatred and cruelty to an entire group of people.  It also just makes me made since I have seen the personal struggles of my gay and lesbians friends.  No one can possibly understand what they go through in their day to day lives.  I have had to stand up for them multiple times in my small town and completely not diverse school, and every time I have a hard time controlling my anger towards these people.  After reading the book I felt sympathy for Cal, because he had to go through his life with so much complication and not really ever knowing who he truly is.  In the world today people claim to be people of God and kind, forgiving people, but meanwhile they are showing hatred for gays and saying they are all going to hell.  How can they say that when we are all God's children; he created us all.  Why aren't people able to judge others based on their character?  No matter what people do or say, people are going to be who they want to be and do what they want to do, so just let everyone have their freedom of self-expression and let them live their lives.  If they are causing no harm to you than why criticize and be cruel to them?

Blog 4

What really caught my interest was the video "A Class Divided."  It was so interesting to watch young kids take on certain roles just by the teacher saying "you're better than him." It really shows how easily we can become influenced.  It's just like a psychology experiment and it proved how we are peer pressured and changed by people around us.  This also showed that we take on the roles that society gives us.  The adults were also interesting to watch because we see how angry it made them even though they were mostly white and were probably not even ever discriminated against as much as a black person would have been.  I think this just proved how ridiculous racism and segregation is, but no matter what it will always be around in some form.

Blog 3

My favorite character of the novel is Hans Hubermann.  Out of all the dark and sad things in Liesel's life Hans provides a flicker of happiness and comfort.  I can feel her comfort whenever she sees him.  He is a character that is not for the war but is forced to join to protect his family.  Hans and his son have a ery difficult relationship since we seem him yell at his father for not being in the Nazi party.  Hans gets extremely close to Liesel like she is his actual daughter.  I think that maybe he loves her so much because he lacks that love with his own real son and longs to have it.  Hans also struggles because he is against the Nazis regime but forces himself to do it to protect his family, like when he smacks Liesel for saying she hates Hitler.  Overall, I think this character is my favorite for the comfort he brings to Liesel and the entire novel.

Maus

The relationship between Vladik and Artie seems to be difficult and confusing.  In the novel it seemed as if Artie was merely just a reporter, only coming to get the story.  To me they barely acted like father and son, so the relationship confuses me.  You'd think that Artie would just want to hear his father's story to understand him, but to me it seemed like all he wanted was to interview him for his job.  However, throughout the story I do feel that Artie is beginning to understand more about his father and also his mother.  Maybe if he knew about his father's past he could understand him better and see why he acts the way he does, afterall it is a very depressing and tormenting story which Artie could show a bit more compasion to.  I think that Vladik's past may be holding him back from having a better connection to his son.

Introduction

Hey everyone my name is Abby Payne and I am from York County.  I graduated from Kennard-Dale High school which is surrounded by farms and also named after two farmers.  I am extremely laid back and open-minded which makes me really easy to talk to.  I've played softball since I was five and tournament softball since I was ten.  Then, I also played varsity softball since I was a freshman and my main positions were shortstop and catcher.  Volleyball was another sport that I played and made the varsity team on.  I also enjoy writing poetry because it's a good way to express yourself in a creative and unique way.

Currently, I am an undeclared student, but I am leaning towards secondary english education because I want to make a positive impact on people and I feel like that would be my chance.  This class seemed interesting to me because I like discussing and analyzing certain readings and to find meanings in what I read.  I wish I read more, but sometimes it feels like I don't have the attention span to, so the last book I read is called Sarah's Key and it was a touching and sad story based in France during the Holocaust.

Today, I feel that many don't know much about other cultures and how different their beliefs and lifestyles really are from us in the U.S.  I do feel it's important to learn this because it's learning about the world around us and not just our own very small section of the Earth and I am expected to learn the way others of the world think, write, and live in a world of their own.  I feel that if we were to learn the way others think then we can expand our mind to new, creative ways of thinking and seeing things, maybe in ways we've never even thought of before.