End Of The Year

      I have grown as a student in ways  I would of never thought possible before, this class made things easier in many different ways, it made school more tolerable. This course has prepared me for school in many ways, it prepared me for my AP exam and it has prepared me for next year when I will be taking AP Lit. class a senior. Taking this class has made me see life in new way, it changed my perspective in the way the world is and how people act. It made me see people in a new way , and it made me try to understand people without judging them for who they are.
      One of the essays that was more difficult for me to write was the argumentative essay because for me it is very difficult to choose a side to argue, and I am very easily distracted so it is very hard for me to stay on track with this essay if I don't have a lot to read on about it. I think the rhetorical analysis essay was the easiest one because I've been writing this type of essay since I started high school. The novel I enjoyed the most was " The Great Gatsby", I enjoyed it because it shows how the real America is, it shows how the American people change, how even though we think we are honest good people, behind the act that we put up we will always be screw ups. The book I hated the most was "The Things They Carried", because of all the gory details, and just the fact that it was very, very, very depressing.  Mr. Thomas you have been one of the best teachers I've ever had.

The Things I Carry

The physical thing that I always have to carry around is my wooden cross. I can't seem to be able to go without it, whenever I don't have it with me, I literally start freaking out, really, I start asking if anyone has seen it. I feel naked without it because I'm already used to having it around my neck wherever I go, it has a very special meaning to me because in a way it represents my believes and my family's believes, everybody in my family has one. My dreams are to be able to go out of the state for college after graduation and to be able to see the world and learn from it, its all I can think about sometimes. Its like a craving I have, and just the thought of not being able to do it causes me pain. This dreams give me guidance because I think that if I want to make this dreams come true then I need to make excellent grades, I have to give everything I have to my studies, even if I don't like it.
  The person that seem to always be with me is my mom, because she is the person that is always encouraging me to follow my dreams. It's like this, every time I fall she helps me get up, no matter what, she is always telling me to follow my heart to do what feels right. She is always telling me that if I want to get somewhere and makes my dreams come true I have to give it my hardest, no one else besides my mom do that for me. Three words that I think describe me are shy, clumsy, and average, this words that I think describe have a huge impact on my life. They are a huge impact because since I believe they are to be true I do not go out of my way to make people think otherwise, I do not try to change this, it is as if I was following a book that is telling me who to be, I don't even try to go out of my way to change this. I t is also an impact because since I am very shy sometimes I never say what really is on my mind, I rephrase everything I want to say or I just don't say anything.

 It's very difficult to find a way to create your own identity but to be able to be respectful of the culture you were brought up with . Me, I am still a lost case, I think I still don't know how to create my own identity, it's a struggle every single day. If you grew up with parents like mine I would love to meet you, so here it goes. My parents are strict and very overprotective, they question every single thing I do, they need to know were I am every single minute of the day. But out of both of my parents my dad is the worst he is the type of mean who believes that women are responsible for everything that has to do with the house, that they have to stay home, he is a perfectionist, but at the same time he encourages me and my sisters to keep studying and go to college get a career and graduate,
    This is what makes it difficult for me to break out but I want to do it. If there was a way to be in the middle it would be when you listen to your parents pay attention to them and you try not to make them feel terrible, but at the same time you are honest and you tell them that you want to be you, and that if that means going a different way then what your parents taught you they are going to have to understand. You have to communicate with them, and let them know who you really want to be, you have to let them know that your going to try to follow their culture but at the same time your be your true self no matter what, That what being in the middle has to be like, how it's supposed to feel.

Edgar Allen Poe

One of the things that Edgar Allen Poe did amazingly well on his story " The Fall of the House of Usher", was how he wrote the story from the point of view of what seem to be a very normal ordinary guy. But by the end of the story he has the readers confused and thinking, they start asking themselves if what the narrator was saying did in fact happen at all in the story, you wonder if the guy was sane at all. This makes readers question everything the narrator said, their minds start to wonder if any of this happened and readers end up confused thinking that the protagonist was insane himself.
        Poe is also very descriptive in his story, the way he describes the scene at the beginning when the author first lays eyes on the Usher house. He has a way that makes the readers see the story the way he sees it, he makes the readers feel as if they were in the story. His imagery captures the attention of the readers, he is able to transport them to another time and place. Poe makes some words sound like spell that will make you fall into the story like a dream.
       Also, the fact that he is able to write horror stories again and again without losing his touch. He was always capable of coming up with new details that were very original and they were his own. Allen makes the stories seem more realistic then they are, he captures your attention on every turn he makes, and he has you wrapped around his fingers. Also how he is able to make every story better than the one be for it, he never appears to disappoint his readers.
       Another thing that Edgar does is the way he twists his story that leaves the readers wanting more to understand the story being written. He starts writing the story one way and in the middle of it he makes a huge twist that changes the entire outcome of the plot. Poe makes the story take turns anyway he wants and it captures the attention of his readers completely.
       Altogether he has a way of surprising the reader, I think that when he feels that he might loose the attention of his readers he changes the story in some ways that are very dramatic and it brings new readers in. Even though in some ways he is very predictable you can never actually know how he had decided to write the story either the way he thought was right for the reader or in the way he wanted to write it. However, being able to think that you could imagine hoe he had decide to make his next move no one can really know how he came up with this incredible stories. He was able to keep the mystery alive that some writers and normal people wished they had.

The supernatural in America

The fascination for the occult dark forces in the USA has been here for a very long time ago. One super natural story that is connected to dark forces is the Witches of Salem, which made it to  history books in America. So how is it that a country that was created by the religious ended up being so superstitious, that even though they don't want to they still end up believing in the stories that they are told no matter how ridiculous they sound. You could say that the mystery behind it all attracts our attention like nothing else before has, maybe its the fact that we will never know whether the story is true or not. Throughout all of American history, this tales are found either because they were created by some of the most famous authors or because they have been told by people for a very very long time.
  In modern day we can still see that human life in America is not complete without stories about the supernatural. You can find them in literature, in movies and in TV shows. For example in literature you have the Twilight Saga series which is a story of love between a human and a vampire and it captured the attention of a lot of teens, in literature you have the mortal instruments series which has to do with angels,demons,werewolves,vampires,witches, and everything that has to do with the supernatural. For TV shows you have the famous show of America Horror story: Coven which is supposed to be the story about teen witches in New Orleans, and it attracts the attention of both teens and adults. This fascination over the supernatural has incorporated into the day to day lifes of Americans, and it proves that no matter what happens there will always be a way for the supernatural to weave into American life. Maybe the fact that its been in American life for so long it makes it seem impossible for us to live without it. We can't seem to be able to tear it away from us it has become an essential part of America. 

       When it comes to anti-hero's the ones that come to mind are Ichabod Crane from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Walter White from Breaking Bad. They both have different personalities, but at the same time the have a few things in common. Crane and White were both teachers and there actions were led by the need and want to have money, although one of them never achieved his goal. They both had different ideas as to how to get what they wanted, one Ichabod plans on marrying Katrina and White starts to sell Meth, they also have different motivation to get the money.      
             Ichabod Crane just wants the money for no reason, at first he might have actually liked Katrina but when he found out that she had money, that she was a heiress he just courted her for the money. But unlike Crane, White did it because he wanted to have enough money to be able to leave for his family after his death, for him it felt like that that was what he was supposed to do even if the way he was getting the money was the wrong way. Also Crane was a very superstitious man he believed in every single legend, myth, and story he had ever heard, and White was more of a science guy he believed more in the facts, and he had accepted that he was dying, unlike Crane who was not prepared for his death, it was sudden. Even though they are both anti-hero's, they have differences then similarities.