Poetry #1

1. From what poem/author does this commercial borrow (without credit)?

The poem in this commercial is called “the laughing heart” by Charles Bukowski.

2. Why might the use of this poem by a corporation be considered ironic?

When the corporation of Levis uses the poem it is can be ironic for a couple reasons. The one that stood out to me was when the commercial started out with the first line.,”Your life is your life, don’t let it be clubbed into dark submission” the company contradicts itself because they are telling you to buy a product in the commercial, but saying this at the same time.

3. Does this poem reflect the  reputation of the author? Why or why not?

No, the poem does not reflect the reputation of the author because the poem is inspiring, upbeat, and motivational. Charles Bukowski’s isn't one to be any of those. All of the things he wrote about were dealing with poor people and their problems.

4. How did you find the answers to number 1 and 3? Describe in great detail your research process.

For number 1 i typed in the first line of the poem into Google and the first website was the text of the poem with the authors name. For number 3 I typed in “reputation of Charles Bukowski” into Google and the first website i picked was called poetry foundation. It gave a biography of his life and where he found his inspiration to write his poetry. 

Essay #1

Exile

            "Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience.  It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home; its essential sadness can never be surmounted." When exile happens from either leaving a place, or in this case with the Poison Wood Bible, moving from the United States to the Congo to be a missionary things tend to change drastically. Immediately following the arrival in the Congo Nathan Price and his family noticed and experienced the change of the environment. There were some negative experiences as they arrived as well as some encouraging ones. Through all of this the author, Barbara Kingsolver, gives the reader a different perspective of the culture and atmosphere involved with the Congo natives and how distinct others like Americans are.

            Multiple negative experiences were results of the Price family entering into the Kilanga village. One challenge that occurred was that they were the only people from America in the village which meant that they needed a translator for everything. Also a little while later the chief came into the church and made the people take a vote on if Jesus was their God. Of course Nathan Price had never had to deal with this predicament in the U.S, because of freedom of religion so this was a lot different than he was used to.

            Although, the time spent in the village and the other places of the Congo wasn’t the best some good things did come as a result to it. For example, Rachel moved to Johannesburg, South Africa to live with Axelroot and enjoy the culture and society there. Adah eventually goes to college and becomes a doctor. After learning to walk without a limp she became very successful in her discoveries of Aids and the Ebola virus. Last, Orleanna becomes active in the Civil Rights movement. This gives insight to the reader that even when your life is filled with darkness the light can always be found.

            Throughout the book it not only contrasted between dark and light experiences, but it shed light on the fact that because of the exile the United States is extremely different in various ways. In Nathan’s first sermon he uses the phrase, “nakedness and darkness of the soul” to refer to the natives of Kilanga, but when Kingsolver describes Nathan she uses the phrase, “heart of darkness”. Through these phrases she gives the irony that Nathan thinks that the natives are in darkness when he is the one with the dark heart. Kingsolver adds onto this statement with the positive and negative experiences of the family while living in Kilanga.

 

The Complete Essays Notes

• The complete essays of Michel Montaigne are personal but are more general thoughts pertaining to life in stead of his life.
• Montaigne lived his life in sixteenth century in France.
• Montaigne's main topics he wrote about were happiness, children's education, repentance, and solitude.
• During his time period there was much religious conviction.
• Michel Montaigne is skeptic towards the after life posing the question "What do I know?"
• Throughout the essays Michel Montaigne refers to a backroom. This backroom is a room where people can escape the front room. The front room is where you meet with people in life and socialize. The back room is suppose to be the back of the house.
• Montaigne wants to be accustomed to death. He doesn't want to be scared or frightened of the future. He wants to take it with ease.
• All his life Montaigne was a Roman Catholic.
• Most of his essays in this book are from Michel de Montaigne's thoughts and nobody elses.
• His essays have no unity or structure in them.
• Montaigne describes the essays as his children to give them a more personal look.
• Most of Montaigne's thoughts and imagination comes from the past.
• Physiognomy is the art of judging human character from facial features.
• According to Montaigne, he believes that there is nothing more unjust than when something wicked becomes lawful.
• Montaigne explains that it is human nature for even facts to be questioned because not everybody who relays information onto another person knows where the truth or story first took place. People keep relaying the information they heard onto other people because it is natural to feed into these so called facts that along the way could have exaggerated a little bit to make what has been told more interesting.
• In the case of Socrates who was an ugly man, he had the most beautiful mind and soul. The saying might no mean a person has to be beautiful to have a beautiful soul it could mean in Socrates case that he was ugly in order to disprove this theory.
• Being beautiful can mean many things. It doesn't always mean from the outside. Because you can be beautiful from the outside and not inside, or both, or beautiful on the inside and not the outside.
• Nobody can make you happy unless a person is happy with themselves first.
• The power of freedom over oneself can be harder to attain but is not unlikely to have, a person just has to be willing to fight it.
• The thought of knowing when a certain thing will happen will make the person tormented on when it will happen.
• People who think about suffering actually feel the suffering because knowing something is going to happen can be a blessing or a curse.
• The point of departure of the essays is negativity.
• Michel de Montaigne sees the human being as weak full of failure.
• The whole time the essays puts out the question of all knowing.
• Often he rejects commonly accepted ideas. This is mainly because he uses skepticism a lot.
• All of his essays are not to be formal or instruct us how to do something with a clear purpose. The don't even sometimes have intentions in the writing.
• The essays mean "to test" or "to try". In this view his complete essays were written successfully in that he wanted to put a personal note on them with his experiences and life stories.
• Some topics that he uses in the essays include education, happiness, repentance and many more.
• His life stories and experiences had to do with cruelty and the disorder that came with the religious conviction.
• This was when he lived in sixteenth century France.
• He put emphasis on trying to see his subjects from different point of views.
• Part of the reason his works were so good was because he read so many books that just enhanced his knowledge.
• He makes sure to utilize his quotations and put a unique style on everything which is relaxed, but humorous.  One quotation he wrote was that was in the end of the essays under Of Experience “The most beautiful lives, to my mind, are those that conform to the common human pattern.."
• In the eleventh essay the topic is virtue that Montaigne writes about. He explains to the reader that virtue is much more than just being good.
• The reader doesn't have to read very far to realize that Montaigne writes out of respect to the past. Mainly, he centers around Greece and Rome.
• Some skills that Montaigne uses a lot are irony and references to the past.
• A lot of the time when he is writing he has a concern for the readers, but in some other parts he holds a message for the readers.
• During his time Montaigne when writing the Complete Essays was known to have a modern voice in the literary period.
• His purpose is to limit or redirect the traditional activities of the people. These people mainly being intellectual and intelligent people.

Scholarships and Colleges...

 Scholarships

• http://colleges.niche.com/account/scholarships.aspx

•  http://www.supercollege.com/offer_process_new.cfm

• https://colleges.niche.com/survey/process ( 3 scholarships in 1 survey )

Colleges I would like to attend

• Westmont College
• Air Force Academy
• St. Katherines College
• Point Loma Nazarene University

The Poisonwood Bible Notes

Notes

• In 1959, a preacher, named Nathan Price takes his family on a mission trip to the Belgium Congo. 
• Upon arrival the Price family learns that they are the only American family that will be living in the Kilanga village.
•  They all begin to adjust to the abnormal setting they have moved into, especially Orleanna and the daughters. 
• Rachel just wants to just be an American teenager again while the twins, Leah and Adah, enjoy the culture and the nature of the village. 
• Mr. Price soon learns from Anatole that the chief is unhappy with his church. 
• The day after Ruth May breaks her arm and Nathan has to take her to Stanleyville.While they are talking to the doctor he tells them that they should leave because the Congo will gain independence. 
• A little while later Brother Fowles visits the village and the family are shocked at how well his approach is to his work of a missionary. 
• One Sunday while Nathan is preaching the chief, Tata Ndu, interrupts the sermon and takes a vote to see if the people declare Jesus as their God. 
• The vote shows that the people don't think Jesus is their God. 
• Meanwhile a hunt takes place and Leah kills an antelope, but the chief's son is to embarrassed to admit that Leah shot it down. 

•  Later that night, the chief's servant, Nelson, is worried that someone is trying to kill him so the daughters sprinkle ashes around the chicken house where he sleeps. 
• The daughters awaken and check the house to see that a poisonous snake was in the chicken house. As it leaves, it strikes Ruth May and she dies. 
• Orleanna places Ruth May's body on a table outside and takes the daughters and leaves town.
•  On the way, leah suddenly gets malaria. Once the reach Bulungu, Orleanna makes sure that Rachel leaves the Congo. 
• She decides to take Adah to the embassy so he can go back to the United States and leaves Leah with Anatole.
•  Brother Fowles comes with saddening news to Leah that her father was killed while migrating from village to village preaching.
•  Rachel spends the rest of her life in Johannesburg, South Africa managing hotels and becomes a successful business woman. 
• Adah goes to college in Atlanta to become a doctor while Orleanna becomes active in the Civil Rights Movement. 
• Orleanna can't get over the guilt of Ruth May's death, but Ruth May's spirit tells Orleanna that she needs to forgive herself for the death. 

Main Characters

• Nathan Price- An evangelical baptist preacher who moves his family to the Congo to become missionaries. He later dies while visiting many different villages. 

• Orleanna Price- Nathan's wife. She devotes herself to protecting her daughters in the Congo, but can't forgive herself for Ruth May's death. 

• Leah Price- One of the Price twins. Very intelligent and later gets malaria. 

• Adah Price- One of the Price twins who is born with a disorder. Even though she can speak she chooses not to as a child and teenager. 

• Rachel Price- The eldest of the Price daughters. She cares for her appearance and knows that she is beautiful too. 

• Ruth May Price- The youngest of the Price daughters. She dies by a poisonous snake. 

• Tata Ndu- The chief of the Kilanga village who isn't happy with what Nathan Price is doing. 

• Anatole- a school teacher who is a translator for Nathan during the church services.

Pride and Prejudice Notes

Notes

• Once Charles Bingley moves into town the Bennet household are overjoyed with hopefulness. 
• Mr.s Bennet looks to marry one of her five daughters to this single man Mr. Bingley. 
• Mr. Bingley lives at the Netherfield estate and is immediately attracted to Jane Bennet at a ball where they danced twice together. 
• Although the Bennet family takes a liking to Mr. Bingley, they form an opposite opinion of his friend Darcy, a landowning aristocrat too proud to talk to any locals and refuses to dance with Elizabeth Bennet. 
• Bingley's sisters, as well as Darcy, don't like the relationship of Jane and Bingley. 
• Also, suddenly Darcy is attracted to Elizabeth, but the more Darcy is attracted to her the more she wants nothing to do with him. 
• Instead she becomes attracted to a militia officer named George Wickham. 
• He tells Elizabeth about how Darcy disobeyed his father and was not only proud, but cruel as well.

•  Then Mr. William Collins comes into town and is the man that will inherit the Bennet's property. 
• He also says he wants to marry so he asks Elizabeth to marry him, but she refuses. He then goes and asks Elizabeth's friend, Charlottle Lucas, and she accepts. 
• While, both Darcy and Elizabeth are in Kent, Darcy surprises Elizabeth and proposes to her.
•  Elizabeth replies saying that his pride and the information from Wickmham is all just too much and so she declined. 
• The next day Elizabeth received a letter from Darcy that explains the real truth of what happened with his father and it also reveals his part in convincing Bingley to not be involved with Jane. 
• This letter makes Elizabeth realize that her own pride and prejudice got in the way of seeing who Darcy actually was. 
• Once Elizabeth returns home she goes on a trip with her aunt and uncle and they unexpectedly meet Darcy. 
• They are all in awe at how wonderful Darcy treats them. 
• Then Bingley returns to Netherfield and asks Jane to marry him which she accepts. 
• Lady Catherine De Bourgh visits Elizabeth and Darcy and tells them that they should not marry, but Darcy proposes and Elizabeth accepts willingly.

Main Characters

•  Elizabeth Bennet- second daughter of the Bennet family. At first she isn't interested in Darcy, but then she realizes he is the one. She is extremely intelligent and young.

• Fitzwilliam Darcy- At first he came off prideful and stuck up, but as the story went on he revealed a true kind nature about him that led Elizabeth to fall in love with him.

• Charles Bingley- landowning aristocrat who moved into the netherfield estate. Finds an immediate attraction to Jane and they fall in love and marry.

• Jane Bennet- eldest daughter of the Bennet family. She falls in love with Charles Bingley at a ball after dancing with him and marry awhile after.

• Mr. Bennet- He is unhappily married to Mrs. Bennet and has 5 daughters. He is depressed because he did not set up his family to be good financially.

• Mrs. Bennet- Married to Mr. Bennet and all she wants to do is find husbands for her daughters.

• Lady Catherine de Bourgh- Darcy's aunt who disapproved of Darcy marrying Elizabeth.

• Mr.  Collins- the man who will inherit the land of Mr. Bennet and asked Elizabeth to marry him. She declined the proposal.