I found that Our Town was an okay book/play but it wasn’t as good as the novela Master and Man but it was better than the story of Joseph. Also after watching the play I had lots of different thoughts about but I must say that I thought it was kind of weird how there were the talking ghosts at the end. I can definitely say that there was a plot twist when Emily ends up dying like that was so surprising to me. It was kind of weird that in the third act Emily evoked on a reflection in life. I enjoyed how the play our town was more of an easier read compared to Master and Man or the Joseph story. In the end when emily goes back to relive a memory it kind of made me think about life more specifically the play kind of was encouraging that we should be present and mindful of our lives because most of us just take it for granted. This book/play is definitely something that I haven’t read before but I thought that it was pretty interesting to read this play/book. Although I don’t think that i would reread this book/play its that type of thing that you read once and then forget about it.
Month: November 2024
IRJE #3 The Dragonriders of Pern
I saw my last IRJE entry and I am going to try and make this one a lot shorter. In part three of The Dragonriders of Pern, The White Dragon, by Anne McCaffrey, the young Lord Jaxom of Ruatha hold is faced with a challenge. He and his dragon Ruth are making history as the first Lord Holder to ever own a dragon, but the problem is that he can’t be a full time dragon rider, and Ruth is different from all the other dragons. He is the only White Dragon on all of Pern, and he is much smaller than even the smallest of the small dragons. Together they will strike out on their own and pursue what they are denied in secret, but in doing so will find themselves facing a desperate choice, one that will push their bond to the breaking point and threaten Pern itself.
“Ruth, what if N’ton finds out we’ve been timing it,” Jaxom said through chattering teeth as they broke out of between into the hot midmorning sun of Telgar over the Mastersmithcrafthall. He will not ask. Jaxom wished that Ruth wouldn’t sound so complacent. But then, the white dragon wouldn’t have to take N’ton’s tongue-lashing. Timing was bloody dangerous! I always know when I’m going, Ruth replied, not at all perturbed. That’s something few other dragons can say (p.540).
I chose this quote because I find the confidence in the dragon funny and entertaining. Dragons generally do not differ from their riders opinions, and are usually quite polite and respectful. I just enjoy the way that Ruth sounds so confident in his abilities to tell when he is going.
Personal Writing #3 That time that I think my family might have been just a little crazy…
So, we were in Hawaii staying with my stepmoms parents, and we had agreed to go out to lunch together. Her parents are older so they stayed home in the morning while my Dad and my stepmom and I went out to walk around the little shopping center. I think we agreed to meet at the restaurant at around 12:00 because that seems like a normal time to have lunch, and it gave us time to walk around the center and my grandparents time to relax. So, we get there at 12:00 and we don’t see her parents anywhere, and we decide that they will be there in just a minute, but after about 20 minutes had gone by we thought that they must have thought we were meeting at 12:30. We were all getting pretty hungry by 12:30 so, we decided to order food and wait for them to arrive. The food came to the table around 1:00 and we thought it was super weird that her parents hadn’t shown up yet, but just as I turned around to see the food coming I saw that her parents were literally sitting at the table right behind us. I was like, “Look, it’s them!” My parents turned around and said hi, but we were all so confused and asked why they were so late, but they said that they had gotten there just after 12:00. And this is the part that makes me think my family is a little crazy, for whatever reason, during the hour long time period when both groups thought the other wasn’t coming, no one had thought to give the others a call or even send a text. Also we were seated outside, and her parents were clearly visible. It’s not like it was loud and we were in a crowded booth or anything, they were literally right there. We were right in front of them and they hadn’t even realized, and we also hadn’t seen or heard them right there. IDK what to do with my family at this point…
IRJE#2 The Dragonriders of Pern
In this second part of the novel, written by Anne McCaffrey, Dragonquest, we see the effects of the last book when Lessa travels back in time with her dragon to bring forward the Weyrs of the past to help fight the alien threat called thread in the future. Thread is a substance that eats any and all living material and kills it all. The only thing that can stop thread is the fire from dragons, who fly over Holds and Halls to protect the people of Pern. Thread falls for 50 years at a time every 200 years. However the last interval lasted 400 years and many people thought that thread was just an old story, and that the dragons were no longer needed because the Weyr was supplied food from all the Holds around. There used to be 6 weyrs but 5 mysteriously disappeared–which was actually Lessa bringing them forward in time–and left only one small Weyr. Even now that Lord Holders and Craftmasters alike are forced to admit the importance of dragons, they are still impatient and start pressuring the riders to go between to the red start where thread falls form. (Dragons have the ability to travel between any place and time, but if the rider stays between too long they are in incredible danger.) One young rider from Benden Weyr decides to go between with his dragon, Canth. The risk to the rider–F’nor– and his dragon is great, seeing as no one really knows what to expect. (This was an improvised and spontaneous plan) There has been such a tremendous loss in the recent past that he feels he must do something to try, he is also scared that his older brother will try to go and get himself killed.
With the desperation born of frenzy, Prideth wrenched herself free, Wirenths talons leaving gouges to the bone along her shoulders. But as she twisted free, beating for altitude, she slashed at Wirenth’s unprotected head, across one gleaming eye. Wirenth’s tortured scream pierced the heavens just as other queens broke into the air around them; queens who instantly divided, one group flying for Prideth, the other for Wirenth. (p. 419)
Later, ;lksd fie lksd kjasdf:
Brekke doubled up, right shoulder hunching as if to protect her head. “My eye! My eye! My eye!” Brekke was covering her right eye, her body writhing in an uncontrollable, unconscious mimicry of the aerial battle to which she was tuned. (p. 421)
This quote takes place when Brekke’s queen dragon Wirenth rises to mate, and when a queen rises to mate you always take other queens out of the wyer to not make the mating queen jealous. But you are also not supposed to take your queen out of the weyr when she is close to mating. So Brekke’s queen rose to mate and Kylara’s queen Prideth had gone out and she had risen at the same time and they fought and went between. Which is the equivalent of dying. I chose this quote, or two quotes because I thought that it was a good representation of the bond between a dragon and their rider.
PW#2 What the heck is up with my birthday?
OK. I need to start off with saying that you should not ever hang out with me on my birthday. For YEARS my birthday has caused bad luck, and I partly blame it on my dad who started it the day I was born. According to him they were in Whole Foods when my mom went into labor and he asked her if he could grab a burrito before they left for the hospital, because of course he did. So they get to the hospital and there is unlucky event #1 LIKE LITERALLY THE DAY I WAS BORN. My dad got a parking ticket and I also ruined my cousins third birthday because they had decided to go away thinking that the chances of me being born on his birthday were very slim, so naturally I was born on his birthday and they rushed back to see me. I blame this on my dad because he would have had time to park properly if he hadn’t stopped for that burrito I don’t blame the cousin part on my dad, but my cousin 14 years later has still never let me forget that it was his birthday first. Unfortunately that was not the worst of events to occur on my birthday. On I believe my 11th birthday I was outside at my friends cabin playing with her on the lawn, we were throwing a large blue ball back and forth. I had no shoes on because we were on grass, but my friend did so she said that she would go and get the ball if it went into the forest, even if it was on my side. So when the ball rolled into the forest on my side she ran to get it and tripped over the sprinkler breaking her ankle. LITERALLY ON MY BDAY! A year or two before that we were up at the cabin and my friends brother Theo had some weird reaction to something (we still don’t know what.) and his eye was big and puffy and it just kept getting worse throughout the day. AGAIN LITERALLY ON MY BDAY. One year we were wake surfing behind my friends boat and my dad fell off his board, but his arm got caught in the rope and cause a really painful rope burn. On my 7th birthday my dad went out biking and sprained his ankle, which was like 10 days before he was supposed to get married. And literally just this last year we were out on my friends boat and out of nowhere my friends dad got stung by a wasp which caused a big reaction, and his foot was swollen to the size a a balloon. I am not kidding LITERALLY ALL OF THESE EVENTS HAPPENED ON MY ACTUAL BIRTHDAY! So put it in your calendars everyone, August 8th stay away from Lyla day. You have been warned.
IRJE #1 (yes I am very behind on english posts and there will be a lot of them.)
The Dragonriders of Pern is part of a large series written by Anne McCaffrey. The Dragonriders of Pern consists of three different parts, Dragonflight, Dragonquest, and The White Dragon. This book takes place on a planet called Pern and features Lessa who is an outcast survivor–her parents murdered and her birthright stolen–a strong young woman who has never stopped dreaming of revenge. But when an ancient threat reemerges she will face it head on along with her dragon Ramoth. She is struggling to adjust to a new way of life and the next choice she makes will change Pern forever and could put the life of her and her dragon in danger. Dragons and their riders share a mental and telepathic bond so intimate to the point were if any rider dies their dragon will suicide. If a dragon dies a rider is only half a person, often driven to insanity by grief.
Oblivious to the descending bronze dragons, oblivious to the presence of their riders, Lessa stood caressing the head of the most wonderful creature of all pern, fully prescient of troubles and glories, but most immediately aware that Lessa of Pern was Weyrwoman to Ramoth the Golden for now and forever (p.66).
This quote is from right after Lessa impresses Ramoth. An impression is when a rider forms the bond between them and their dragon and occurs in a large sand pit where future riders gather around the last clutch of eggs laid by the queen, and when the eggs hatch the dragon chooses the rider and forms the bond. I chose this quote because it shows a different side of the character that we don’t always get to see.
Master and Man personal response because I forgot to do this a long time ago
I thought that master and man was an interesting story, but not really for me. I enjoyed certain characters and thought that it was well thought out and had a good plot, it was just an interesting execution. It was confusing and I can’t think of any particular part that stood out to me, except for when Nikita said, “Now either a lazy woman or a dead one has left her clothes on the line.” I just thought that it was a funny statement. It is definitely not something that I would recommend to anyone. It was really just rather boring, and didn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense to me. Overall I would probably rate it a 2 out of 10.
“Our Town” Personal respose
This play was really different from others plays, this play had a really weird start and they acted without things so they act with nothing, it also had a really big plot twist, the narrator was really diferente form others because he could talk with the actors and interact with them, he also some times he was part of the play doing a kind of role what is really weird for a narrator to do because they always just tells us what is happening in the play but this narrator was in doing both so he was talking about the play and the setting but he also was a kind of character in the play. I think this play is boring at the beginning because it just tells the story of 2 families and how the daughter of one family and the son of another family gets marriage what it a little boring because there is nothing interesting that happens, then the plot twist make us fell sad because Emily dies and in some kind of way we saw the whole story of Emily and George love and then Emily died suddenly what is a really sad thing. We see in the play how Emily is remembering the whole life she had and all the good memories she had, she regret everything because she did not enjoy enough the life she had so this play teaches us that we had to enjoy every single thing that is happening right now.
Our Town – Personal Response
After reading the book Our Town and watching the play I had multiple opinions on it. Out of the 3 stories we have read during this unit, this book was my favourite. This book was something that I have never read before. I have never read a book that was in a script/play format so that was kind of cool to read. I found it cool how they had the stage manager be a real part of the play. In my opinion he was the most important part of the story because I think that I would have been lost in the story without him talking. Another part of the story that I found cool was how the story was so set apart. Each act was years apart and talked about completely different things and situations that happened in their life at Groovers Corners. I did like how they did this because he allowed some of the scenes to have more detailed and it allowed us to get a better understanding of what was actually happening. Something that I thought was interesting was how they included so many people in the play. In the book they didn’t have to many people talking. But in the play there were many people in the background scenes and all over the town which I thought was interesting and a good detail.
PR- Our Town
Our Town by Thornton Wilder in my opinion was a good book for me if felt like it was a really quick easy read and taking notes not being to complicated with big words or over explanation, I like the plot twins at the end and how we get to see the writers point of view on death and how he made it out to be a really nice peaceful thing with an option to go back and relive some days or to go back to there grave with the rest of there family or friends. In the actual play I love the acting and the feeling even tho they are using props to put the house together but not for the scenes is really cool and pretty and is a good example you don’t need a whole bunch of fancy equipment to make or put on a good show. The story was very sweet in a way where it touches on a lot of sensitive topics but not at all in a disrespectful way and in a way where if it fits in with how we normally talk about them in our normal lives. IN my opinion the book is a good 8.5 I would recommend reading it but I don’t think it would be my first decision
IRJE #2 Good girls guide to murder
Good girls guide to murder by holly Jackson is about Pippa fitz-amobi trying to solve the murder of Andie bell for a school project, now from where we left off Pip was going through phone interviews with family and friends of Andies as well as the evidence that was left and trying to find leads. Since then Pip has received a note telling her to stop digging, multiple messages from an anonymous number and whoever was behind all of it broke into her house, looked over her research and left hundreds of lines telling her to stop and back off. Besides all the threats from whoever was sending them, Pip managed to prove sals innocence, she found out Andie bell was dealing drugs and who she was getting the drugs off of and a few people she was selling too, how Andie bullied a girl named Nat De’silvia and Nat got charged with aggravated assault a few years later, Her best friends got in a hit and run while drunk driving then crashed the car and the first police officer who arrived at the scene was Nats older brother (Daniel De’silvia) who’s best friends with Jason bell (Andies father) and when Sal was killed and Ravi tried to ask questions he would shut them all down and told him its better to forget about it.
Pip: “Nat said her brothers a police officer, lets look him up.”
Ravi: “hey I know him”
Pip: “you do?”
Ravi: “yeah. Back when I started asking questions about Sal, he was the officer that told me to give it up, that my brother was guilty beyond doubt. He does not like me.”
Pip was out walking one day after finding out sal was innocent and had let her dog off leash. she had her headphones in so she couldn’t here but when she got home and called her dog (barney) he didn’t come back. She later received a message from the anonymous number to bring everything with her project on it to a tennis club walk into the forest and destroy it if she wants to see her dog again. She packs all her stuff up without thinking destroys it and goes home but when she had gotten home her dad told her they had found barney in a ditch and he had drowned.
“Our Town”- Personal Response
I found the play “Our Town” quite enjoyable. It was cool to see actors improvise with little to no props. Emily and George’s character development was charming and emotional, especially when George visited her grave. The emotions near the end made me think about the future and living in the moment. I loved the plot and the role of the stage manager; it added to the play and made it easier for the readers/audience to understand what was happening. The creator (Thorton Wilder) did a very good job of creating a play that includes multiple emotions. I think the meaning of the play is also very important. Saying that we live life without necessarily appreciating what it has to offer, which is true in my case. I didn’t understand the play while reading it, but once we watched it, it all made sense, which I’m happy about. I love that it had no violence and simply just showed the readers/viewers what it was like to live in Grovers Corner, but the author still made it interesting to read and watch. The play highlights the importance of family, community and ordinary life which I also think is very important.
IRJE # 3 Black Boy by Richard Wright
Black Boy by Richard Wright was a very creative book, full of twists and turns, the 416 pages are about the hard life of a boy living down south (where many racists are). His parents support him while everyone without color brings him down with his hopes of being a writer not everyone believed in him but he still managed to get through it. He was a very curious kid who wanted to learn more about the world.
I would make his life more intelligible to others than to himself. I would reclaim and cast his disordered days into a form that people would grasp, see, understand, and accept. *beginning of CH 19 (p. 329)
This describes Richards’s motivation for his life story about Ross (The black communist. Richard thinks of life as painful and horrible).
Our Town personal response – Laila
Our Town Thornton Wilder, I think this book was alright, the very beginning was good then towards a quarter way through the play it was starting to get a bit boring. I did enjoy How the play was presented, it was interesting how the actors used no props. The acting on the other hand was…. fine, sometimes I felt they used the wrong emotion; at the end Emily was way to happy when she just had died along with her little brother, Mrs. Gibbs, and lots of other people she knew, and watched her family stare at her with grief. The costumes were very well put together during the time period. Speaking of time period I like being able to read and understand what the people were saying, personally “I” is better than “thy”. I also found the conflict between Emily and George captivating. My favorite part of the book was the wedding, I found it funny and realistic on how nervous everyone was. Getting to the end when half the people died was sad, rushed, and a little confusing (In my opinion) In conclusion I found this play pretty good, I liked the concept and how it was layered out. I would give this book an 7-7.5 out of 10. I would could I would probably read it again.
IRJE #2
The Forgetting a novel by Sharon Cameron. The novel is set in a unique place where memory is a cruel thing in society. The novel follows a girl named nadia and she just happens to live in a city that forgets the past every 12 years. Nadia is on a journey through the book to find a way to retain the memories that she has lost. I would recommend reading this book because its interesting book.
Gray throws a hand out toward the light wall. “why would a little girl keep a book before the first forgetting, Nadia? All these stories, these things we’ve been looking at. The people who came here”- he emphasizes the next words (p.221).
This quotation is about Nadia before the time that she is going to forget the past 12 years of her life.
Adrien PR – Our Town
Our Town is a play written by Thornton Wilder. It tells the story of 2 families who are neighbours in fictional town called Grovers Corners, in New Hampshire, in the 1900s. The teenage girl from one of the families and the teenage boy from the other family end up marrying, and in act three, the wife dies and explores what it’s like to relive a moment in your life through your eyes once you’ve already finished your life. I actually quite likes the play, I’ve definitely heard the name Grover’s Corners before, so I’ve heard of the play before, and I might have even started reading it in my old school. But anyway, I liked it, I found it interesting, I think it did a good job allowing me to picture how life was in the 1900s, and it also did a good job depicting what goes on in families and in households with kids or teens. I found, obviously since it was written way after the other 2 books we’ve read, it was easy to understand. I think they also did a good job with the acting in the actual on-stage play as well, the actors looks well-suited their role, and they all did a great job acting as if they were actually living their life. So, in conclusion, I would read this book again.
IRJE #2 – Star Girl Laila
Star Girl, Is a novel by Jerry Spinelli. The book is structured at the boring life of Leo Brolock a high school student in Mica Arizona, who falls in love with a very interesting new student named Stargirl Caraway. At first Stargirl was a sensation of excitement, but she then faces challenges as her unconventional behavior, kindness, and clash with the desire for acceptance and popularity. The novel Explores the different of themes of identity, true love, and the authentically of connecting with others.
“She was elusive She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a corkboard like a butterfly, nut the pin merely went through and away she flew.” (p.130)
This quotation is given by the narrator giving the sweet and light description of Stargirl herself. How she cares for others, and doesn’t care what the world thinks of her. Star girl is a monumental example of a good person.