Janie

There are many things that can be said about Janie as a character, many things that can be argued about her, but I believe that she is definitely not a boring, static character. She is often unpredictable and throughout the book, she has gone through many changes.

Janie is alive during a time in which her circumstances of living are not exactly desirable: she is a black woman during a time when both black people and women were second class citizens. Janie is also missing parental units and she herself comes from something broken. Despite all of these difficulties, Janie is a strong person. I think that she understands that there are factors in her life that she cannot change, no matter how much she may want to, and because of this, she does not fight, understanding that she does not want to cause more damage. But she is also not completely sedentary. There times when she fights back, because she knows that she can, like when she insults Jody after he has been insulting her for years. And she knows what she wants, and she is not afraid of this, of what others think of her. Her one true desire seems to be love, and regardless of whether or not this is something she can achieve and whether or not it is worth working so hard to achieve, I appreciate that she is not willing to give up, regardless of what everyone around her says.

Janie is not without faults. She makes rash decisions and does not always think about those around her and is not always the kindest person, but all in all she is not an awful person and I think she is someone that many people can find something to admire in. 

Thankful

Even though it is cheesy, I truly am thankful for everyone in our 5th period English II class. I am thankful that it is an environment that I am comfortable enough to share my thoughts in, and I think that it is that way because of the people in the class.

Some of the people I am most thankful for are Gisselle, Veronica, and Kate. I am thankful that all of them put up with me and listen to the things that I say even though they often make more sense in my head than they do when I say them out loud and that we have the ability to do out work while still having fun in class. I like knowing that they will always be there for me to work with, which makes working in groups less stressful. Even though I did not know Kate before this year, I am thankful that I have gotten to know her. I am also very thankful that I have gotten to know Gisselle and Veronica outside of track and cross country and that they will always make me laugh, and I am thankful that Veronica is always there to run with and will tell me funny stories about her day or her childhood or Scooby Doo.

I am also thankful for Emma Unterseher because even though she is not in our class she always tells me what the homework is and we often discuss the things we talk about in class and how they often connect with the stuff we have done in the English classes that we have had together since pre-school.

I hope everyone has a nice thanksgiving and eats lots of yummy food!

Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway was without a doubt a talented writer but he was also not a perfect man. I think that his lifestyle and personality should not be admired but that his writing should. He always strove to make his writing as truthful as possible and so his writing says a lot about him. What he saw as the truth in the stories he wrote may not have been the truth for everyone at that time, but they were the truth to him. Especially in his stories about Nick Adams, Hemingway revealed a lot about himself in his writing.

If anyone looked at a list of things Hemingway did in his life and places he had traveled, they would think Hemingway had lived a very full life. His life was certainly full of adventure- he lived in Paris, Cuba, Key West, and spent lots of time visiting Spain and hunting in Africa. He had many 4 wives and was involved with many other women. He was a celebrity during his life and spent lots of time fishing and boxing and enjoying the nightlife of cities like Havana. Even though Hemingway spent so much time busy and seemingly full of life, he also seemed to always kind of empty. He treated most of the people in his life like crap, including but not limited to the many women in his life and his children. He might not be entirely to blame for this- he grew up in different times and didn't always have an easy life.

Hemingway was a very talented writer but all in all, his talent did not give him the right to be misogynistic and disloyal to the people in his life however hard his life might have been. 

6 words, 1 story

Not always alone but always lonely.


She had everything but wanted more.


They knew he'd be eating alone.


Nobody asks what he was wearing.


Not prepared for everything to change.


Nails bitten, speech given, still shaking.

John Proctor- Hero or Stooge?

According to dictionary.com, a stooge is "any underling, assistant, or accomplice" and a hero is "a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities." John Proctor, in my opinion, is neither a complete stooge nor a complete hero. 
Had I only read the last Act of the play, I would definitely say John Proctor is a hero. The fact that he refused to allow the chain of blame to continue was very brave. I think he understands that, chances are, no good will come to him through this but he accepts this and decides to confess to witchcraft without blaming anyone else anyway. He seems to be a martyr for the truth. 
However, knowing about John Proctor's previous actions make it harder for him to be categorized as just a hero. Proctor doesn't instantly decide to stand up to Abigail and tell the truth. He doesn't instantly decide to confess and it doesn't initially occur to him to just end the continuous blame. It seems very possible that if John Proctor had just said up front that Abigail was lying, the story could have turned out very differently. He does, at least for a while, stand as an accomplice to all of the craziness that occurs in Salem when he doesn't say anything. 
This also brings up the question of what really makes a hero, or a good person? Is it something people are born with, or do you have to make a conscious decision at some point along the way?

There Goes the Neighborhood

"Finders keepers, losers weepers," is something that most people probably said at one point in their life upon finding something that didn't seem to belong to anyone. Though often thought of as something that only little kids say, it seems to be a mentality that is common throughout modern day society and throughout history. Part of the problem though is that when people find something that isn' theirs, they often take it without wondering about the person who it truly belongs to.
When Christopher Columbus (or any other settlers) first arrived to the Americas, they seemed to give very little consideration to the people whose land they were taking. When they first arrived, the natives were probably fascinated. They had never seen people like this before, and probably had no idea that soon, these people would be trying to take over their land and kill them. They didn't know that, eventually, their population would be dramatically reduced and that their culture would be almost completely taken over by the European culture. They didn't know that, hundreds of years later, they would still be struggling for basic human rights and looking for recognition and still asking people to repay them for what happened so long ago. When Columbus and other settlers arrived, they paid little to no attention to the thoughts and needs of the Natives.
Currently, gentrification is an issue in Chicago and around the United States. I have lived in the Logan Square/Humboldt Park area for almost eight years and in that time, the neighborhood has changed drastically. It went from being a primarily Mexican-American neighborhood to one that has been overwrought with young, mostly white, hipsters. As the demographics of the neighborhood change and it becomes more "hip," the price of rent goes up, and as a result many of the poorer families and businesses that have been here for years are forced to leave. Similar things are happening around the United States in Harlem, New York City, all over San Francisco, and in so many other places. In cases like these and with the Native Americans, the people moving in do all the keeping and those who are forced to leave are the weepers.

Me

Hi, my name is Iris. I am a sophomore at Whitney Young. I graduated eighth grade from Lincoln Elementary school and before that, I went to Inter American Magnet School. I currently live in Logan Square with my mom, my younger brother, and soon, my stepfather.

I am on the cross country and track teams. I have a love hate relationship with running but I clearly like it enough to go to practice every day. When I have free time, I like to hang out with friends or relax. I have always loved reading and some of my favorite books include A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, and Harry Potter, but really there are so many that they would be impossible to name. I also love listening to music and going to concerts. Some of my favorite artists are Andrew Bird, Bon Iver, Vampire Weekend, Tune-Yards and Bob Dylan but there are so many more. One of my favorite things is being able to see a band or musician that I love live.

For the past six years, I have gone to summer camp at a co-op in Delton, Michigan called Circle Pines Center. All year long, I look forward to the three weeks that I will spend there and I believe that without the things I have learned there, I would not be the same person. In the future I hope to be able to travel more. I would love to visit Spain to see the culture and also greatly improve my Spanish but I would be open to traveling almost anywhere.