Sea Fever

Sea Fever By John Masefield

I must go down to the seas again,

to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship

and a star to steer her by;

And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song

and the white sail’s shaking,

And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and

a grey dawn breaking,

                                                                                                                   

I must down to the seas again,

for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call

that may not be denied; And all I ask is a windy day

with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume,

and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again,

to the vagrant gypsy life,

To the gull’s way and the whale’s way

where the wind’s like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn

from a laughing fellow-rover,

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream

when the long trick’s over.

This poem really caught my eye because of its connection with the ocean. The beach is basically my favorite place to be so I definitely liked the way they described it. The feeling of calmness and hearing all the noises around you is something I love about the beach as well as boating on the ocean. The way the beach is, is described as “the vagrant gypsy life” and that’s what I’m about.

-          I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky

I really like this line because as I said, the beach is such a calm place to be that it’s always nice to just go by yourself or withsome and lay out while u look at the beautiful sea and sky.

-          I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

I liked this line because I surf and it’s always best when the tide’s are running, if everything is calm then you really can’t surf.

-          To the gull’s way and the whale’s way

This line kind of reminds me of myself and how I like things my way. At the beach you know you can just relax and not have to deal with what other people like, only what YOU like. 

Heroism

Many great stories of heroism are shared today. Whether they are money related or something such as saving a life. You mostly hear about people raising awareness about many different causes these days such as the earthquake in Haiti or making money to help feed people that have absolutely nothing. Today’s heroes I would say carry characteristics such as generosity, strength, courage, leadership and much more. Beowulf is very similarly described like that in the book because he is very generous, kind and unbelievably strong. In the book “Beowulf”, the main hero is Beowulf himself. Beowulf travels to the Danes to save them from Grendel and Grendel’s mother. Since Grendel and Grendel’s mother are the ‘monsters’ of course it is Beowulf’s duty to kill them and save the day. Grendel and his mother were killing people and made their way to Herot which is where the Danes live. When Beowulf arrives to the scene he ends up grabbing ahold of Grendel and ripping his arms off, allowing him to bleed to death.  He then stabs Grendel’s mother and chops her head off which is how she dies. These are my examples as to how Beowulf displays great Heroism. 

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

Bad things happen to good people all the time, in fact this has been happening forever. Leading us back to the 1600’s-1700’s when slavery took place. Slavery has been occurring for thousands of years, but specifically targeting the slavery in the United States during the Civil War era is what I am trying to get at. People were forced to work for hours on end with barely any income. They would starve and go through so much pain just so they could come up with some sort of money. Families were separated since men were mainly used for yard work and women as slaves in people’s homes… and all of this for what? Just because they were colored, they were forced to go through all that crap. Innocent women, men and children were treated like garbage for the most senseless reason I have ever heard of.

Another example of bad things happening to good people was when the Holocaust came about in the early-mid 1900’s. This began during World War II because of Hitler. He had a few reasons for doing so which were because he believed Jews were a weaker race, that they were a plague, that they were plotting behind the German’s backs, and because the Jews forced them to go back to war. Hitler believed these things were true and in order for the German’s to be at the top they had to get rid of the Jews. They too were treated like garbage and millions were killed in such brutal ways. The Jews did not do anything wrong and just because you don’t like a certain group of people it does not give you the right to hurt them. These are my examples for how bad things happen to good people.  

Night

My chosen word for my word web was night. Night comes up a lot throughout the book. It is used in many cases, especially for the bad ones. I say this because the murders all took place at night and most evil plans were created at night. The ghosts always seem to come out at night which is why Macbeth cannot sleep. This makes him feel like he’s truly going insane. Another reason for this is because the witches potions seem to be created at night

A little water clears us of this deed

A little water clears us of this deed. How easy it is, then!

Lady Macbeth is saying that basically all you have to do is “wash your hands” and you will be clear of what you have done. It’s that easy!

What, will these hands ne’er be clean?

Macbeth is saying that these “hands” will never be clean. As in he cannot take back what he has done. 

Night Word Web

Word Webz

The character Macbeth connects to the words murder, evil and hurt. I say this because Macbeth plans to murder Duncan in order to take his place as the new king of Scotland, he is an extremely evil man with a terrible heart and he is willing to hurt anything and anyone just to be powerful. As for Lady Macbeth… she connects to the words death, sneaky and disgusting. She is just like Macbeth when it comes to death considering she doesn’t care who dies as long as Macbeth has complete power of everyone and everything.

Now even though Macbeth is played out to be the mean, evil, heartless man in Act II Scene 2 Macbeth is actually guilty for murdering King Duncan. He doesn’t feel okay with what he has done to the King and it’s almost as if his mood has shifted. Too bad it isn’t the same for Lady Macbeth. She is still the heartless, disgusting chick she has always been. She doesn’t care about the death of the King and just tells Macbeth that he should not think about what he has done. Macbeth even kept the daggers he used to kill the King with even though it would be obvious evidence of murdering King Duncan.

Indirect is better than direct

There are quite a few cases that perhaps making an indirect approach is a better choice than being direct. An example of doing so would be if my mother were to ask me to go out with her when I'm really tired and just want nothing but my sleep. Instead of saying "I'm tired get out of my face" I might say something like "I'm not feeling well can we do this some other time?" This way I'm still getting what I want :)

Macbeth and the Three Witches

This picture represents Macbeth. He is a very mean, evil person and he wants to become the King of Scotland. He looks evil in the picture so that’s why I chose it.. he enjoys evil. For Macbeth negativity is like his form of positivity and he wants everything his way. That is why he wants to become the King of Scotland, so he can control everything under his rule. He kills the original King of Scotland but Macbeth is eventually killed. If you see in the picture, his eyes look evil which also takes part in my interpretation of Macbeth. He is an evil spirit with absolutely no kindness in him.

 This picture represents the three witches. I chose this picture because the witches too are evil and this picture makes them look as though they are. They are dressed in black cloaks and are standing together on this ugly day. This is when “so fair and foul a day I have not seen” comes in, which interprets into such a gloomy day but the victory is great”.  The witches like gloomy days and that’s why I thought this picture was perfectly put together for the three witches.

 

Ambition

To me ambition is the will to want to accomplish something, so you work extremely hard for it.  Ambition is absolutely something positibe but yes there is a dark side to it. You can get to a point where you just work too hard and could possibly hurt yourself or tire yourself out to a dangerous point. I feel ambition is a good thing if you can control it. Be able to have desire to do positive things and don’t overwork yourself.

If you knew you were going to get something, you wouldn’t work as hard to get it. For example if someone was told that they were going to live a very, very long life they would probably do stupid and crazy things still thinking they were going to live that long when in reality you are just ruining your chances of that happening.

Macbeth post 4

1.    1. In the beginning of the script, actor’s 1,2 and 3 (the Witches) say fair is foul and foul is fair which
    may mean that fair things are only bad and foul things are good to the witches. Then actor 4 exclaims who the heck is that?  Followed by actor 2 whom yells “Macbeth is coming!” Macbeth then says “the wheather is so terrible but the victory is so great, a day I have not seen”. Actor 3 then says “bow down to Macbeth who will soon be King” as Macbeth then says “since I am part of the royal family, I am eligible to be the King”. Actor 5 then says “have sex with me here” but Macbeth says “if it were done when it was done” and Actor 5 says “screw that nerve you have to say such a thing”. Then suddenly actor 4 tries killing Macbeth but it turns on him and actor 4 ends up being killed by the dagger. Actor 6 then says “fly good man, fly” to actor 4 who has just died. Then Macbeth says “blood will have blood” meaning evil will have more evil. The witches then say “I only look for trouble around me”.. Actor 7 then dies and actor 8 yells bleed, bleed poor country. Macbeth later dies.

2.       2. Two observations that I see in the script are that in order for Macbeth to be crowned King, he must kill the current king and another is that actor 5 is cheating with Macbeth.

3.   3. -  What does “out damn’d spot” mean?

- If Macbeth dies then who is crowned king?

What I Saw in Homer and Langley

While reading the book, one specific scene I was able to see was when Homer met the beautiful young girl named Mary Elizabeth Riordan. She was a piano student and world-traveling aid worker. While reading the book, Homer eventually finds a job as a pianist for movies.  His job was to be able to play a different song for different scenes in the movie. For example if one part was about Love then the tempo should have been nice and sweet. Then if a different scene was of anger the tempo should have been faster and more intense. Where Mary Elizabeth comes in is since Homer was obviously blind, he could not read the screen that said whether the scene was about Love, anger, etc. She would sit next to Homer and explain to him what each scene said. Instead of paying Mary Elizabeth in exchange for helping him, Homer gave her piano lessons. Mary Elizabeth lived with her Grandmother, an immigrated family with very little money so the “free” piano lessons meant very much to Mary Elizabeth. Homer actually ended up growing a connection with the young lady but he knew that he was much too old for this precious 16 year old girl. 

Literary Texts

There are many reasons as to why we should care about literary texts, starting with the idea that literary texts are just so interesting to read. Books vary in idea for example one book may be about animals while another may be about Indians. Literary texts allow us to widen and fulfill our knowledge with different subjects and ideas for the better.  If for some reason we do not understand something, a literary text can help us to understand that idea in a much better way. For example if I wanted to know more about the idea of slavery and how that went about, I could look up a book that talks about nothing but slavery and this would help me grasp the idea. A Personal Learning Network plays a role in all of this because if reading a book does not work for you, you could always us the internet. A Personal Learning Network can help with your learning, answer your questions, and point you to new learning ideas. The internet is so unimaginably large and filled with much information and it can help you with just about anything and everything. A very helpful website that can help would have to be YouTube because it shows you actual videos of different things. YouTube not only allows you to look up videos but post your own as well. Being able to do so also allows you to help others if they are having trouble with something. 

a bit about myself...

Hi.. so I’m Savannah and I’ve been going to North Broward since 6^th grade. Before coming to Florida I lived in Uruguay where I went school for a few years, meaning my first language was Spanish. I’ve traveled a lot but most recently I went to India which was extremely different. My two favorite sports are dirt bike riding and playing soccer but for the most part I love being at the beach because it’s so relaxing and I know I have no worries when I’m over there. I have a sister that graduated from North Broward last year and is now doing her own thing at a University up in Georgia. Being in this English 4 class, I really hope I get to learn more about creating an organized and lengthy essay that can contain lots of information but not to the point where it sounds confusing or boring. My class last year with Mr. Bajger helped me out very much but there’s always room for more knowledge. English is most definitely one of my favorite subjects so I hope my current teacher, Mr. Parsons, can make this course a very interesting and fun one for the class especially considering that I learn better doing hands-on activities. My favorite kind of music would have to be reggae, therefore my favorite artists consist of Damian Marley, Matisyahu, Bob Marley, etc.  An idea I care deeply about would have to be equality amongst every individual because, even though things have changed now living in the 21^st century, I can still see that not everybody is treated equally. Different things and ideas lead to things such as race and sexuality. Being another skin color should have nothing to do with how you treat one another; same with sexuality meaning that just because you’re gay it doesn’t mean you have a deadly disease it just means you have a different perception of your sexuality.