le conclusion-ay

When I look back over my blog I can really say to myself “THANK GOD IT’S OVER!!!!!” Blogging was one of my weakest aspects of English class. This blog taught me to remind myself every week of what I have to do. I may have hated this blog but it taught me a lot of lessons like getting 0 out of 20 really does lower your grade. Also it taught me it’s not the best idea to wait till the last minute to do my blogs. Although this lesson may still need to sink in (as I type this on Monday at 9:00) at least I realize now it’s not good to procrastinate.

English has been great this year and as the year wraps up and I look back on my blog I can definitely tell I’ve learned a lot. At the beginning of the year I wasn’t exactly the perfect student. As I look at the dates a lot of my blogs were published I can see I may not have taken them too seriously. As my grade took a slight hit I can see I started to get the picture. This would be the reason I have about ten blogs that were all published on the same day.

As we look later into the year my blogs started being published…… around… the time they were given to us and with the extra time I got to put a little more depth into my blogs and a little more personality into what I was writing like when I said “She’s been screwing with almost EVERYONE in the novel and look what happens in the end..... SHE BURNS TO DEATH“. It’s almost as though I was there giving my own sarcastic opinion.

Although I like to joke about it I was definitely a slacker at the beginning of the year, but after the constant look of disappointment I would get from Mrs. Gilman every time I had missed a blog. I knew I should probably change. Well…. Here I am Tuesday night, the due date for the BIG blog with the thought of a disappointed Mrs. Gilman lingering in the back of my mind I hunch over the keyboard typing away making sure to get my point across. My point being…… IT’S ON TIME!!!!! Yes. That’s right Mathew Geisler’s blog is ON TIME. No more making up. No more zeros.

And to thank I have Mrs. Gilman. You’ve made freshman year one of the coolest freshman years ever. It sucks that we won’t be having you next year to make us feel guilty about not doing our blogs. But after this I don’t think I’ll need Mrs. Gilman to remind me and let me make my blogs up. After everything this year I’m pretty confident the rest of my high school will be fine. Who knows maybe in a couple years when Mrs. Gilman’s staplers disappear suspiciously and end up duct taped randomly around the room, she’ll remember…….. Wait that’s 500? Okay all done!!!!!!!!!!!

Thinking back through assignments and projects brings back good and bad memories. The most memorable project was Poetry Out Loud. when we started to memorize "Fire and Ice" it was oddly fun using hand motions to remember what the next line was. I got "can't remember" by i have noclue. Before memorizing the poem, we did a class analysis of our poem, and I was confident that I understood the poets message.I started the technique when I first got my poem, it worked very well. I usually practiced my poem at night so no one could hear me. Now that I look back, it's really funny how frustrated I was when I messed up, I had to start from the beginning until I got it right. When I memorized halfway through the poem I stopped the hand signs and started memorizing anywhere I went. My friends usually were my audience hearing my practice and practice and practice.

I got my poem memorized about an hour until the class competition. I was SUPER nervous the day of the competition. The main thing I was afraid of was completely drawing a blank in the middle of my poe,. I did a surprisingly good job! Got tied for second place and went to the school competition. This was the most memorable because it was hard but fun, and it really felt like exercising an important skill.

good experience with poetry

my fondest memory dealing with poetry is from the fourth grade. My teacher, Mr. Brewer was the typical "greener". Every week he'd take the class to LBA (a park by our school) and we'd get an hour to write a poem and than we'd go back to the school and have a couple hours to ead our poems. I loved this because writing poetry at a park witrh all your friends is alot of fun! also we'de have poetry competitions sometimes.

ever since my fourth grade year i've loved writing and reading poetry. the one thing i love most about poetry is that there isn't ever a wrong answer. Mr. B taught me to love and respect other's poetry too.

Karma

I believe the overall message of the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dickens is don't mess with others because you'll get what you deserve in the end. the most prominent way this idea is shown is with Miss Havisham. She's been screwing with almost EVERYONE in the novel and look what happens in the end..... SHE BURNS TO DEATH. A more subtle way this is shown is with Pip he kind of abandons his family because he was embarrassed to be poor and in the end he loses all his money and his brother in law Joe has to bail him out. In the end i think everyone got what they deserved. I think Pip learned that money Really isn't everything and family will always be there for you but money is fleeting.

Connections

a movie that i think parallels the themes and overall plot in "Great Expectations" is the movie "pirate Radio". In this movie rock and roll isn't played in Brittan and isn't aloud to be played due to the controlling government. The government can be looked at like everybody in a higher position than Pip. through this entire book there is someone trying to control Pip and a lot of the time these people don't care what pip wants.

In order to play there beloved rock and roll a group of radio Djs live on a boat broadcasting constant rock and roll to brittan. There are parts in the movie where the crew are fighting amongst each other. this could be seen as Pip's conscious. Pip seems to always be going through some sort of emotional struggle.

The actions taken by the crew members are considered illegal and although pip hasn't done anything against the law many of his actions i believe will have nagative consiquences.

In stage two of Great Expectations pip is now a gentlemen and has a completely different lifestyle and a new look on life. On top of that The pale young gentlemen from Miss Havishams is now Pips roommate and good friend. One major contrast between pip and herbert(the pale young gentlemen) is that herbert actually works for his money and pip just acquires it from Mr. Jaggers. I think my feelings of pip have changed also I'm starting to feel like Pip is becoming a spoiled "gentleman".

Pip is telling you to remember a part of your life that has made you who you are today. This experience that Pip has changes him in negative ways. Pip has become more mature in his thoughts and actions. He doesn’t make a game of describing his opinion of uncle Pumblechook and he starts to use more offensive words against Pumblechook. Uncle Pumblechook isn’t the only one who Pip starts to think differently of. Pips thoughts about himself and Joe also change. Pip used to not care about what others think, but after being insulted by Estella, Pip begins to care about social status and class. He says he doesn’t like his “course hands and thick boots.” He cares to a point where he begins to get embarrassed by Joe and his low education. I think he is slowly pushing away from Joe.

One big moment in my life is when my brother moved out. I used to always follow him around and do what he was doing. After he left I started finding new things that I actually liked. It's helped me to become much more independant and im finding more things i like.