This last semester I had to read quite a lot of literature whether that was an actual book, a play, or poem. So I thought I would share some of the pieces of literature that I read and give my opinion on them.

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

This is acutally a play tha I read during my English 102 course and probably my favorite. It is set in the Depression period about a mother (Amanda) and her two adult childern, Laura and Tom. Tom is both a character in the play and the narrator. The play is Tom remembering a past event, which is the main plot of the play. Amanda wants Laura to be married and hopes that Tom can help her find a husband. Tom is not happy at the warehouse that he works or at his home and wishes to leave, this idea makes him and Amanda clash a lot. Toward the end of the play a gentleman caller comes over (a friend of Tom) and Laura realizes that it is the same man that she had a crush on in high school. Both Amanda and Laura hope that something can come out of this meeting, but they find out a little too late that the gentleman caller is already engaged. Because Tom had invited the gentleman caller and didn’t tell anyone he was engaged Amanda blames Tom for embarassing them. This last fight between Tom and Amanda drives him to leave and join the merchant sailors nver seeing his family again, although he never does forget his sister, Laura.

The Inferno by Dante Alighieri

This book is extremely interesting because when it was originally published people believed that Dante had literally traveled through hell because of the great detailed given in the book. The Inferno, which is actually part of the complete work called The Divine Comedy, is about Dante’s (the character)journey through hell with his guide, Virgil. He travels through hell in hope to reach purgatory and eventually heaven, and the only way to get to heaven is through hell. When I read this one it was quite werid and scary, but defenitely a piece of literature worth reading. In fact there are many authors who have used The Inferno as an inspiration for their own work.

Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar… by Thomas Cathart & Daniel Klein

I used this book for my Critical Thinking class and it was very unhelpful. It didn’t explain philosophical terms very well and had more jokes in it than actual philosophical ideas. It is supposed to help you understand philosophy through jokes, but it doesn’t! And one thing to be aware in this book is that some of the jokes can be sexually crude or have foul language. Some of the joke were funny, but the book is not worth it. Though one of my favorite jokes had to do with inductive logic and it was:

Holmes and Watson are on a camping tri. In the middle of the night Homes wakes up and give Watson a nudge.
“Watson,” he says,”look up in the sky and tell me what you can see.”
“I see millions of stars, Homes,” says Watson.
“And what can you conclude from that Watson?”
Watson thinks for a moment. “Well,” he says, “astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astronomically, I observe that Saturn in is Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. Theologically, I see that God is all-powerful, and we are small and insignificant. Uh, what does it tell you Holmes?”
“Watson, you idiot! Someone has stolen our tent!”

These three were just some of the ones I thought I would give my opinion on. There were a lot more that you can check out.

English 102

• The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
• A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen (this one is really interesting too)
• Death Knocks by Woody Allen (this one is actually really funny!)
• Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien (I would not recommend this book, it was about soldiers and what they carried during the war, but it had quite a lot of foul language)
• The Experience by Jill Tweedie
• Sonnet 18 and Sonnet 55 by William Shakespeare
• When Death Comes by Mary Oliver
• One Art by Elizabeth Bishop
• Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas
• Cinderella and The Farmer’s Wife by Anne Sexton
• Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen
• The Man He Killed by Thomas Hardy
• Five Ways to Kill a Man by Edwin Brock

So for the last couple of days the news has been reporting the reactions to Miss California’s answer to the question about gay marriage. During the competition celebrity blogger and judge of the contest, Perez Hilton, asked Miss California whether or not the rest of America should legalize gay marriage. Her answer was,”In my country, and in my family, I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman.” Perez Hilton asked this because one is he gay and it is a debate that has been in and out of the news for years. Because of the response that Miss California gave Perez Hilton became very angry and blogged about it later calling Miss America a few nasty words.

I just wanted to post this to say in response to Miss California that I think it is wonderful that she believes in a marriage between a man and a woman and the way that God had intended it to be! And not only have that belief but to speak her opinion on national televison! Perez Hilton said that her response is why she did not win Miss America, but even then she still defends her answer saying:

“I was ready for my question, and when I heard it from (Perez), I knew at that moment after I’d answered the question, I knew that I was not going to win because of my answer,” she said. “Because I had spoken from my heart, for my beliefs and for my God. … It’s not about being politically correct, for me, it’s about being biblically correct.”

This is an amazing response! All I can say is that this is the kind of person that people should be looking up too, she spoke her mind and her belief! And I am definetly supporting her response and her courage to stand behind her belief!

Check out the video of her answer by clicking here

My favorite drink from Starbucks is the Carmel Macchiato. Since my dad has an espresso/coffee maker I decided to search around the internet to find a recipe that was close to how the one from Starbucks tastes. Here is a good one that I found:

• 1/2 cup of espresso (Most espresso cups have a 2 and 4 on it, you want to make enough to fill to the 2 line. This measures out to a 1/2 cup)
• 2 tablespoons of vanilla syrup (I use Torani French Vanilla)
• 8 0z cold milk (I use fat free but if you would like whole that is fine too)
• Smucker Caramel topping
• Ice
• 16 0z cup

First make you espresso. While your espresso is brewing, in a 16 oz cup add 2 tablespoons of the vanilla syrup, 8oz cold milk, and ice. You want a lot of ice so I usually fill the cup 3/4 of the way with ice after I put the syrup and milk in the cup. After the espresso is done slowly pour it over the ice. Drizzle with caramel topping. And enjoy!

You can also make this hot by just not adding the ice and using frothed milk.

So it has been a while since I have blogged, but I have been quite busy! With school and other activities it has been kinda of crazy this month. But this week I am on my Spring Break! YAY! I love the break but I am going to hate having to go back to school next week. Anyway my family had a whole bunch of activities going on this week so I was lucky enough to be on break to join them.

First up is Monday. Monday was not very exciting because it was grading period for my brother and sister. So that means helping my mom put together all of their work, making sure that it is graded, and putting the grades into the progress report. After that is all done then we copy the work as a back-up and then send it in (we haven’t done that yet).

Next we have Tuesday. For Tuesday we went to a Culinary Museum in Providence with a bunch of other homeschoolers. That was interesting and I definitely had fun. After that we went and got some lunch at the Cheesecake Factory in the Providence Place Mall. The food there is amazing!!! I had a Double B.B.Q. Bacon Cheesburger with fries, and I only ate half of that burger!

The last one we have is Wednesday. Yesterday we went bowling with other homeschoolers (this time homeschoolers from our church). Now this wasn’t the normal bowling but candlepin bowling with the smaller bowl and pins. I had so much fun going bowling! I always loved going bowling!

So that is this week so far but we still have the rest of today and Friday. On Friday we have a homeschool gathering between 2-4 pm. I normaly go to every Friday (although I am usually late because my last class ends at 2:50ish pm). In the evening on Friday me, my sister, and my mom are going to a purity event at our church. So that is it for now…

So we just took our dog, Shadow, to the vet and the vet told us that she had gained 12 lbs. since her last visit. To make sure that Shadow lives a long, happy life without diabetes we are supposed to get her to exercise. The vet suggested putting Shadow on the treadmill during the winter months, so….

Okay so I just watched this movie a couple of nights ago and it was absolutely AWESOME!!! I cried through most if not all of the movie! This movie is about a relationship between a husband and wife who are going through a extremely difficult time. But on top of being about the relationship between spouses, it is also about relationships between friends, co-workers, parents, and most importantly God.

The people who made this movie did a phenomenal job and most of the actors and crew members were volunteers from the local church! That is just amazing! You could tell by some of the special features that they were very God-centered or focused while filming this movie, and were more concerned with reaching a lot people through the movie’s message. The main message of this movie is, “Never leave your partner behind,” which in an of itself is important and nowadays so many people do not take marriage vows seriously. When saying, “For better or for worse” you are making a promise, a commitment. This movie really deals with this issue as well as with our relationship with God, another relationship that people take for granted.

I would definitely recommend this movie for anyone! It is amazing and very touching. Younger children may not understand the message they are trying to get across (or may not understand why everyone is crying, because you will be crying!) so it may be better for teens and older just because they will be able to grasp the meaning of relationships a little more. But it is a movie that should be added to your movie collection!

So I have taken down the Revenge of Captain Bronze for the time being. For those who may not know what this is, it was a story I started several years ago and have been adding a chapter here and there. Well it has been forever since the last time I have actually written anything for the story and what I have added was very poorly written, so I have taken it down to be edited and finished. The reason I had stopped was because I was losing interest and getting bored with pirates (I moved on to the Twilight phenomenon) so it was hard for me to keep writing. I mean this whole story started with me dreaming about being a pirate and every time I wrote a chapter is was completely improvised and written on the spot. So what I want to do is to take the ideas I already have and rewrite them to make them better and more detailed, to create better characters and make the main characters more dimensional. I really want to take this more seriously so I will not be posting anything until I am finished with the entire story and this is going to take time! I may be posting updates every once and a while to tell you where I am in the story but for now just know that is no longer on my site and I am planning on finishing it and posting it then.

Okay I have only been in school for three days and I just had my first snow day of the semester. Part of me was hoping for school to be canceled just because I didn’t feel like going to school. So when I found out that my classes were canceled I was kinda of happy, mostly because that meant I could sleep in and I didn’t have to go out into the cold! But as I was enjoying my day off I realized that I had to go out and shovel the snow. Now normally shoveling is not too bad because we have a snowblower, but around 1 or 2 pm today the snow turned to freezing rain, so no snowblower. On top of having to do it by hand, it was still raining outside. Yuck! And when there is a snow and freezing rain mixture, it is really heavy to lift with a shovel. So after I was done shoveling I wished that it hadn’t snowed and that I did have school. Last time I wish for a snow day….although I may if I have a test cause then I get more time to study!!!

Here are some photos of our driveway and front yard around 10 am

So I know this is kinda late since the first day of school was on the 21st on January. But I have been busy with just so much different stuff (mostly playing Amish Yatzee with friends! ). So I decided better late than never, right? So this semester I am taking five courses instead of just four, which isn’t too bad so far cause one of my classes is really easy.

My classes this semester:

• English 102
• World History: Beginnings to 1450
• Math 123: Precalculus
• Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
• Introduction to Liberal Arts

So for the first class, English 102, is different than English 101 (last semesters english course) because this one deals more with literature and only two essays. English 101 had four essays and a research paper and no literature readings. I personally would rather write papers than have to interpret poems and other works of literature. So this class isn’t too bad but I never have really been a fan on english.

World History is the one that I was most excited about! Some of you may know that I am hoping to be an Archaeologist so history is extremely interesting to me. The one thing that I am not to fond of is because it talks about the world’s beginnings it has the evolution theories and the world being millions to billions of years old. Yeah right! But this is not a Christian campus and not a Christian textbook. Anyway I am looking forward to moving on past the “beginnings” and talking about early civilizations and how they went about life.

Math is going great so far! My professor for math is hilarious! He told us that we would get “extra credit” for calling him Rambo! Aparently loves those movies and references them throughout the class. He is always making jokes so it makes math fun and fun to be in the class!

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving is probably the course that I really wish I didn’t have to do. So far it is not bad, I mean, in class we read then answer questions. But there is just something, I don’t know what, that I am not looking forward too. Maybe the homework, project, tests, or all of the above? The thing that is interesting is this class is kinda backwards in the sense that we do “note taking/class work” for homework and “answer questions/homework” in the class time. For homewrok we read and while we read, we are supposed to keep a critical thinking journal. Basically take note on what we have read. I usually take notes in class not while reading my homework assignment.

Intro to Liberal Arts is going to be my eaisest coure this semester because we are going to discuss the different aspects of a Liberal Arts degree. Throughout the course we will be reading a couple of different books but nothing too major. The professor for this class is also really funny and makes it enjoyable to be in the class with him.

So, yeah, that is about it for this semester. I have no doubt that I will be posting more about school throughout the semester, but for now that is all.

So it has been a crazy week so I haven’t had much time to update. I started school on Wednesday (will be posting about my first day and classes later) and then haven been hanging out with friends and playing crazy games! So Wednesday after school me and my family went to a friends house and watched Tuesdays with Morrie, which by the way made me cry. After that we had the Givens and the McGraths over for dinner and to play some games. We played both Amish Yahtzee and Spoons, both games are fast paced and kinda aggressive. We played until probably around 10 to 11 p.m. when everybody went home. Fast forward to Friday, this time we went to the McGrath’s for dinner and games. Again we played Amish Yahtzee, Spoons (although we used forks), and we also played Pictionary. But one of the times that we played Amish Yahtzee we wrote 100 to 1 instead of 1 to 100. It was definitely more difficult writing backwards then forwards! Again we stayed up playing until about 10 to 11 p.m. So that was my crazy week so far plus school, but I had an enormous amount of fun staying up and screaming “SIX!!!!!” ;D