Animal Farm's Animals

In George Orwell's Animal Farm, Orwell uses animals to represent Russian leaders and idealists after World War I. Thus, the story is not only a fairy tale, but a way to vaguely state Orwell's distrust against the Soviet Union. This allowed the book to be distributed to Russia without the authorities looking into it. Orwell characterized the animals to where one could easily detect which animal represented which Russian. Despite his personification of each farm animal, he still pays regard to the fact that they are unintelligent and unable to make certain products. This method would definitely appeal to people with very strong political views. In conclusion, Orwell's choice of characters (animals) obvioulsy attracted more readers than what the novel would if the personalities were protrayed through humans.

I Wear the Mask

Eyes stained red,
throat feels sore,
face is swollen.

Time to paint the smile
that should be placed
on this troubled face.

Eyes beam with kindness,
mouth now explodes with laughter,
and face peels back into a smile.

The world believes her lie.
The world thinks she's intoxicated with joy.
The world just knows she's on a natural high.

She feels sadistically victorious
over them.
When will she learn?
When will the paint fade away?

Cross-Examination?

My cross-examination would go a little like this..

Examiner: So, let's go through your movie closet. Shall we?

RG: I wouldn't suggest that, but go for it.

Examiner: Alright, I assume the abnormal amount of John Wayne movies belong to your father?

RG: Affirmative. The Bruce Willis collection also belongs to him.

Examiner: Right, so before I raid the closet some more, are there some movies that you're embarrassed about that you'd like to come clean to.

RG: Well, yes. I have a few movies I am not too proud of. Those being both Scooby-Doo movies, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Powerpuff Girls, and various others.

Examiner: All childeren's flicks that seemed great as a child, but now are just...

RG: ...Awful?

Examiner: Yes. Have you ever considered getting rid of these movies? You know, for a profit?

RG: Oh, no!

Examiner: And why not?

RG: They're MY awful movies!

Examiner: Right, I'll continue witht the raid.... OH MY! AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS!?

RG: I know, that's another one I'm not proud of owning either. I suppose it's a collection of awful children movies I got going there.

The Giver Review

I have once read The Giver by Lois Lowery in the sixth grade, before I even knew what a dystopia or utopia was. I just knew that the main character, Jonas lived in a very strict communist society. Now that I have re-read the novel, I have come to appreciate and realize what a classic this book truly should be.

In the society of The Giver, people of many communities have lives that involve little to no suffering at all, along with minimal disagreements. Therefor, the people of the communities have no conception of real suffering. They really do not have knowledge of what starvation feels like, what war sounds like, or what chaos looks like; their lives are controlled in every aspect such as who they will be in a family with and what their life-long career will be. The people have no desires or worries, so there is a lack of stress. As luxurious as a stress-free life sounds, what would life be like with no choice of aspiration?

Jonas, only a boy, gets to experience what no one else can, though he does not choose to do so himself, being that the Council of Elders forced him to. Through learning experiences through "memories," he becomes wise and realizes that without suffering, how could we appreciate the good things in life.

More detail in Jonas' duty, Jonas has been chosen to recieve memories from ancestral people. One person in the Community must take on this task for everyone else, and every once in a while a new "reciever" is chosen, this person being Jonas. He "recieves" these memories from the previous reciever known as "the giver" (found the title source). Over time, the community that seemed perfect to Jonas turned out to be flawed. Jonas must either decide to pretend to be blissfully ignorant of the flaws or do something about them, escape.

What must we sacrifice for perfection? Whatever that would be, would we have more of a loss or gain? In Lowery's opinion, we would have to sacrifice our individuality to obtain "perfection" and in the end, we would have more of a loss than a gain.

I highly, highly recommend this book to anyone, though adults will definitley catch on to the theme quicker than childern. The main character can relate to anyone, because of his quest to be an individual.

Growing Up (shape poem)

Climb,
Climb, Climb
They'll never end!
These steps keep going.
I want to keep going, too,
but I'm feeling weaker and weaker.

I want--
no, need--
to stay put.
The stairs are
now steeper and
more work to climb

A Time of Celebration

Just a few people I'd like to celebrate.

Here's to you,
Mom and Dad.
Together forever
and still going strong.

Here's to you,
brother and sister
for always being there
at my side.

Here's to you,
Cherry
for pulling through
though times were rough

Here's to you,
Russ
You're always by my side
when I don't have a confident stride

Here's to you,
Sun
You always greet me and leave me
with your colorful rays.