Pretty Feet?

Author's Note: In this essay I decided to write about China and it's culture and how it compares and contrasts to ours. Make sure to pay attention to the introduction. 

Imagine someone judging beauty by your feet. Well. in China, you were judged on the size of your feet. If you had small feet, you were bound to be liked and you were considered beautiful. In the US, it's a whole different story. If you had long feet, you were more likely not to be liked as much as the girls with the smaller feet were. Here in the U.S, unlike in China, you are not defined by how pretty you are by your feet, but by who you are and what you look like.

People get defined by a lot of things, looks, style, or even actions. One of the more common ways that people are "defined" is by their culture. Some people just look at someone and say "Oh, they’re from China," and they judge them solely on their culture and ethnicity. Here in the U.S, our culture is what we are taught from our families. In China, their culture is different from ours. Everyone in China does the same things. For instance, back in the older days for girls, to be considered beautiful, you had to have small feet. Therefore, if the girls had long feet, some of their parents would either tie ribbons around their feet or make them wear really small tight shoes to make their toes curl under their feet.

Here in the U.S you are noticed for your features. Many girls wear make-up to make their faces look "prettier". Some people wear it because their friends wear it, and they want to be like their friends. On the other hand, some just wear it to make them feel better about themselves, and to hopefully make them look more "pretty."

In my opinion, trying to look pretty or to be popular isn’t important in life. People should either just like you for who you are, or don't like you at all. If you think you look pretty, then you are pretty. Don't let people change you if you are happy with who you are. Eventually, you will find someone who is right for you and will treat you the way you should be treated.

To me, beauty comes from inside, but to most people beauty is defined by a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or personality. In general, things that are pleasing to the eye of someone are considered pretty or beautiful. In the U.S, you are not defined by how pretty your feet are, but by who you are and what you look like.

New Cause and Effect

Author's Note: This is my new cause and effect piece, I wrote this piece on the book I Know What You Did Last Summer. The cause is driving drunk and the effect is killing a little boy.

Have you ever done something so stupid that you regret it to this day? In the book I Know What You Did Last Summer, by Lois Duncan, a few high-schoolers thought that it would be a good idea to go hang out on a Friday night at one of their houses and have a few drinks. But drinking was not the stupidest thing they did that night. After they were finished drinking they decided to go out for a drive. What they didn't know was going to happen, was that there was going to be a little kid riding his bike down the hill on his way home, while they were going up it. Drinking that night wasn't the mistake they made, the mistake was driving while intoxicated. 

This incident affected a lot of people. It affected the teenagers, the little boy, and the boy's parents. The teenagers made the situation worse on themselves because they pulled a hit and run. They called the police to alert them of the issue but they called and drove away. To this day the occurrence haunts them, in the mail two of the four now "adults" have gotten a slip of newspaper from that night containing everything that happened. This occurrence  will forever haunt them until they come clean about it. This also affected the boy and his parents. For starters, because the boy was killed which of course affected him but also affected his parents majorly. The parents had to deal with the great loss of their child passing away, and not even knowing who did it or what happened. The impact of the effect of those teenagers decisions that night was huge. 

Trojan's Vs. Greeks

The conflict is person vs. person because the Greeks were fighting against the Trojan's. The conflict was resolved because the Greeks infiltrated the Trojan's "space." 

The most devious thing through-out the whole story was that the Greeks had given the Trojan's a "gift" (the Trojan Horse) and they said that it was just a gift when really they had people hide in it and then they had them attack when they opened the horse. Of course the Trojan's were drunk when the Greeks attacked them, so they were not ready for battle. 

I think that something like this could happen nowadays because we still have our battles in the world and people have crazy ideas. I don't really think that anyone would think to put something like this at a school or a small work place but someone could certainly do it yes. I think that someone might do it because they wanted to rebel against something or against society. I have never really seen something like this in a film or tv show but I have seen the Trojan horse at Mount Olympus, but the only thing that is really similar about the the horse at Mount Olympus and the story is that they both have an opening in the stomachs. 

I Know What You Did Last Summer

Prediction: 

My prediction of this book is that the main character Julie, had a little incident last summer with her old boyfriend Ray. What really caught my attention was the sentence "Then he left home and took off for the coast." When I read that sentence I thought right away that something terrible happened between Julie and Ray, that Julie had to "end" the relationship between them. When I mean end I don't just mean a little sad break-up or something that you can forget about over time, no I mean like this was a permanent thing that Julie wouldn't be able to forget.

Not only did that one sentence make me feel like something horrible happened but on the cover of the book there is a little quote saying "some secrets refuse to stay buried." When I read that I figured that Julie is the one keeping the secret and when it said buried I figured that Julie had either buried Ray after she murdered him or her and Ray buried a "curse" or something like that and that made Ray move out to the coast. 

Ribbons

People get defined by a lot of things, looks, style, actions. One way that people are defined is by their culture, people can just look at someone and say "oh their from China." Here in the U.S our culture is what we are taught from our families. In China their culture is different from ours, for instance back in the older days in order for a girl to be considered beautiful they would have to have small feet. Therefore if the girls had long feet some of their parents would either tie ribbons around the feet or make them wear really small, tight shoes to make their toes curl under their feet.

Here in the U.S you are noticed for your features. Many girls wear make-up to make their faces look "prettier." When people wear make-up and dress in nice clothes, people tend to think that they are popular. Some people wear it because their friends where it and they want to be like their friends.

In my opinion I think that doing things to look pretty or to be popular is a bad thing, because I think that people should either just like you for who you are or don't like you at all. Eventually you will find someone who is right for you and will treat you how you should be treated. 

Who may I be?

Two left feet and still walks straight? Has holes that can sing the beautiful tune of a violin. Yeah I’m pretty cool! My best friend has 5 arms and lives under a rock. I have a great neighbor that loves me dearly. Plays his music ever so well. I have a job that I love, and I am the best in the business. I always am ready for work. Always riding my unicycle, happy as ever.

My boss has an evil nemeses, who ever so sadly, works right across the street from us in a bucket. Always trying to steal something dear and important to my heart. It’s not so bad that he lives, and works in a bucket, because he is right across the street from a lobster trap. Ever so famous in the rough waves, down deep with all different creatures.

I’m as yellow as the sun, and as square as box. My teacher is very puffy and ever so lovely. I have been in school for as long as I can remember. I started way back in December. Always trying to achieve that main goal of getting that rectangular piece of happiness. I always end up going back home to my favorite snail, that thinks he is a cat. 

Here are a few tips to you,

The best time to wear a striped sweater is all the time. Especially the ones with the turtle necks! 

Black and White

Author's Note: This essay is written to show my understanding of text analysis. Make sure to pay attention to my introduction. 

‘“After you, my dear Alphonse,”  “No, after you, my dear Alphonse,”’ equal outlooks on race are obviously shown through the this text by the two little boys in the story “After you my dear Alphonse,” by Shirley Jackson. Showing that without a influence by a parent, teacher, or towns people children don’t notice the difference between black or white. How a child often shows more respect or gratitude than an adult of more than twice his age is shown very much in this piece. 

In the story "After You, My Dear Alphonse", Mrs. Wilson is a very judgmental person, she makes a lot of assumptions that are not true. Just saying these few words gave me an idea that she is an example of reverse racism; meaning she doesn't try to be racist but it comes out sounding that way. "Boyd, Johnny has some suits that are a little too small for him, and a winter coat." Mrs. Wilson wasn't trying to entail that but ended up sounding like that. 

In another line Mrs. Wilson was trying to force Boyd to eat stewed tomatoes because she thinks that he is so poor that he will eat anything that he can get. To me it sounds like she is trying to help him but yet she is saying it in a not so nice way. Reverse racism doesn't just happen in stories or novels, it happens here in Pewaukee, it happens in Waukesha, it happens everywhere in the world. 

There are many times in the story that Mrs. Wilson sounds rude. In this line: "And he certainly has to be strong to do that -- all that lifting and carrying at a factory." Mrs. Wilson is implying that Boyd's father is a poor man who has to work in a small factory and make very little money. It was only till Johnny said "Boyd's father doesn't have to, he's a foreman." that Mrs. Wilson thought she knew everything about Boyd and his family.  

The short story, "After You My Dear Alphonse," children seem to show more respect and make less assumptions than the adults do. There are many lessons that can be learned from this story. Overall I think that the main lesson here is to try to teach not only kids but also adults to not judge other people by what they look like. You always want to get to know someone before you give them a "name."

After You, My Dear Alphonse Analysis

5/1/13

Write an analysis of how this story relates to the topics of naive and reverse racism. How does it compare and contrast our society in Pewaukee? Other areas of the country/world? What lesson do you think Shirley Jackson is trying to teach us? 

In the story After You, My Dear Alphonse Mrs. Wilson is a very judgmental person, she makes a lot of assumptions that are not true. Just saying these few words gave me an idea that she is reverse racism. "Boyd, Johnny has some suits that are a little too small for him, and a winter coat," In another line Mrs. Wilson is trying to force Boyd to eat stewed tomatoes because she thinks that he is so poor that he will eat anything that he can get. This doesn't just happen in stories or novels, it happens here in Pewaukee, it happens in Waukesha, it happens everywhere in the world. 

There are many lessons that can be learned from this story. Overall I think that the main lesson here is to try to teach not only kids but also adults to not judge other people by what they look like. You always want to get to know someone before you give them a "name".