Monday, January 14, 2013

Tuesdays with Morrie

Tuesdays with Morrie

The book Tuesdays with Morrie is a story about the author, Mitch, who going on visits every tuesday to see his old mentor Morie. Morie is suffering from a disease called ALS and is dying from it. The disease affects the nerves in your muscles slowly, before you cant move anymore. Every visit Mitch goes, Morie keeps getting worse. During there time together, Mitch records what Morrie has to say about life. Mitch takes in what Morie says and starts to rethink how he is living his life. The content in this book was about life and its lessons you learn while living. It teaches you to forgive others and  to learn be happy with what you have. It says how you should cherish all that you have, and to live life to it's fullist.
   There are many literary motifs and connections to Tuesdays with Morie. The story was made from all that Mitch learned from Morie. As Morie died, he taught Mitch, and everyone who was reading to enjoy life no matter what is going on. Mitch really made me feel like I knew Morie, and that he taught me everything important in life as if we knew eachother. 
   My connection to thisbook is that I learned a lot from this. It made me appreciate the little things and really realize that anything could happen whenever.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Journal

In my life I value many things. The biggest thing I choose to value is my family. I value my family because no matter what happens I know at the end of the day I will always have them. I also value my friends, but  friends don't always stay in my life. With familyI know I will always have them to count on.
  Valuing my family was both taught and something I determined myself. I was raised to know you need to respect and love your family. I learned through losing friends and boyfriends and seeing that no matter what years have passed my family is still here for me. I will carry valuing my family for the rest of my life. If I someday have kids I will try to show them the importance of having a good family.
    

Friday, November 16, 2012

Groundhogs Day

In the film, Groundhog Day, The main character Phil struggles with two basic questions: 1. How does one make meaning of life? and 2. When does life have meaning?
                Phil struggles through the movie to try and get through each day to make only himself happy. In the beginning and middle of the movie, Phil did selfish things and improved what he was doing to try and help himself out. Every day that he only thought of himself, he awoke the next morning to the same exact day until he realized it wasn't about him. It was not until the very end of the movie that he went through the entire day doing things that would help everyone around him and not just think of himself.
            I personally think that Phil finds the meaning of life when he starts helping others. He realizes that helping others and doing nice things makes him happy too. He starts to have a positive outlook on life and wants to get out and do more. I saw this when he attended the Groundhogs day party, when in the beginning he wanted nothing to do with it. I think he realized his life had meaning when he treated everyone so nicely and made many new friends.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

My Cats <3



During school today my friend mentioned that on the radio she heard the host saying that having more than two cats is just ridiculous and pointless.

   Well, having eight cats I 100% disagree with him. In my opinion having more than one annoying radio host thinking they are super cool and famous is ridiculous and pointless. I turn on the radio to listen to music, not to hear about how some guy doesn't approve of cats...If I wanted to listen to people talk forever, I'd switch over to talk radio. Men like him are the reason I have a million cats. He has his stupid fake radio voice to express his lousy opinions every single morning..while cats just chill and are generally quiet when I wake up. Lets be honest, how many episodes of Hoarders talk about people having 72 radio hosts? None at all.  I've seen plenty of episodes with cats. I understand not everyone likes cats, but not everyone likes radio hosts either. I am fully prepared to live far away from radio hosts.. with more a lot more than two cats. I just wanted to express my radio host opinion.. and my love of cats with my cool collage I made.
The Whale Rider: Response


         The past week we have been watching Whale Rider. Overall I liked the movie a lot. It wasn't boring at all and it was good practice with using the How to read like a Professor notes. While watching this movie, our class discussed a lot about different symbols and motifs that we noticed throughout it. One that came up the most was Whales.
             Whales were used to symbolize ancestors, a bond within the tribe, family and life. Their were many examples of this within the movie. At one point the Whales got stuck on the beach for following their leader which they always have done. This symbolized that by following what you always do can lead to a mistake and changing things up with Paikea leading could be possible.

Monday, October 1, 2012

The Horse-Dealers Daughter



                    While reading The Horse Dealers Daughter I decided to focus on the part in the story where Mabel tries to kill herself in the water. After discussing the story with a few different groups we came up with a few things that this part symbolizes. First a lot of people agreed that this part symbolizes a way of rebirth. Almost like she was cleansing herself of her past, and when the Doctor saves her it's like she is leaving her past in the water behind. The other thing we realized is that the story relates to Romeo and Juliet and Cinderella. The way it does to Romeo and Juliet is that the Doctor puts his life in danger to save her. He's giving his life to save hers. In the way of Cinderella, the mother dies and she is left with the responsibility to clean the house and take care of the family. These are just a few things that I and the class came up with after reading this story.

Friday, September 28, 2012

About Me

My name is Samantha Allen. I am seventeen years old and a senior on high school. I spend my time in school and working as a server in a nursing home. When I get time to myself I enjoy drawing, listening to music, hanging out with my cats and doing stuff on the computer. I love meeting new people, I'm really big on the social part of my life.