Great Gatsby Chapters: 8-9

(1)  “She was the first “nice” girl he had ever known”

Daisy was the first girl that was ever “nice” to Gatsby and not just faking it to him. In the world today a lot of people are like that and that is faking appearance due to what someone has. Some girls come across a guy with a lot of money and even if they aren’t attracted to them, will marry the guy for the money. Then the girl will divorce the guy and take all the money they can get from the divorce. That was different for Gatsby with Daisy because she liked him for the person inside and not for how much money he had.  (107 words)

(2)“If that was true he must of felt that he has lost the whole warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream”

      This quote is basically the whole life of Gatsby and the theme of the book. He built up this whole wonderful world with the single dream of Daisy. Once this dream was crushed the whole world around him started to feel cold and lonely. This happens all the time in society. People create these dreams that make them feel so wonderful inside that right when the dream fails, they break. The dream that created a wonderful world doesn’t exist anymore instead the person feels lost and my life will never get great again. This happens so much because people get that one wonderful thing and do not want to think anyone could be better. (115 words)

(3)“Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let the other people clean up the mess they had made”

      Tom and Daisy are the most hated and selfish characters in the novel. They are so careless on what they do in life that all they create is disaster and messes for other people to clean up. By them taking a vacation they are retreating to their money instead of manning up and taking responsibility for their actions. It is really sad that they think they can get away with anything because someone will be there to clean up the mess created by the two. People in today’s world actually expect someone will clean up their accidents because they have this money or power. This is sad because they can be as careless as they want knowing they will face no consequences for whatever event occurs. (127 words)

(4)”I raised him up out of nothing. Right out of the gutter.”

People who help people when they are at the worse and raise them to be someone special. The person sees they have something special and do not want them to waste that talent by staying in a gutter. The only bad thing is when the person because famous and successful they usually forget the person who raised them from nothing to that star. That is the problem with people is we are never thankful to the friends and family that help us when we are down and guide us to this success. (92 words)       

(5)”Nobody came.”

      After Gatsby dies you start to see how people really felt about Gatsby when the funeral is held and only his dad and Nick show up. When Gatsby was alive everybody came to his parties that he threw but right when he passes away people are apparently to busy to attend. This shows the shallowness of people because they where buddies with him when he had the money and threw the lavish parties but we can’t attend the funeral of the person who supplied this. What happened to Gatsby happens to some unfortunate soul in the world that thought he had true friends that would be there for him when he passed away. The reality is that there are a lot of people who use other people for their gain that won’t be there when needed.  (138 words)

Non-Fiction: Best in Class

Margaret Talbot’s Best in Class has some articles about high schools that got rid of valedictorians and just recoginize the students who get top ten percent in their class. This is a great plan the high schools are carrying out by not selecting a valedictorian. This will relieve a lot of stress from the students who are up in that region competing for that valedictorian spot. The reason is the students are more focused on being perfect grade wise and not worrying about living life which creates this stress that is not needed. A lot of high schools have AP classes which allows a student to get higher than a 4.0 GPA the maxium grade for regular classes. Some schools have ten or more of these difficult classes for students to take. The students who are competing to be the valedictorian want to take those AP classes to gain an edge against that student who is barely below or above them. The only thing is that the AP classes are college classes with a workload of homework which creates unnecessary stress for the student.

            The parents are another problem with high schools having a valedictorian. Some high schools were talking about how the parents come on the first day asking how their child could be number one. As the student hearing your parents saying that to the principal as even more pressure to be number one.

Also, what if the students loses valedictorian by a thousandth of a point or by a student who made his way around the system. The principal gets the angry call from the parent of how can my daughter or son not be valedictorian they are way smarter than that parent’s child. The incident that happened at Sarasota High School, where the students tied and the student with the most credits will be valedictorian. This allowed Denny Davies to be valedictorian because he found a loop whole on how to get more credits and the parents were furious and protesting. By not picking a valedictorian, a high school can avoid a lot of unnecessary complaints from parents who believe their child should be number one.

There are a lot of postives to not electing a valedictorian. This will set up high schools to focus on more students who are being successful in school. Instead of focusing on just the valedictorian the school can recognize maybe all the students who made top ten percent. This will make the students and parents happier by showing a group of students instead of one.

Instead of having valedictorians speak at the graduation who most likely doesn’t want to.  The schools could have people who want to speak for their class and this would be a more amazing touching speech for graduation. By opening this spot up, this could make a student who maybe wasn’t the brightest in the class contribute something special to their class.

            High school can be a lot less stressful and more fun for students and the faculty by not having a valedictorian position.

(513 words)

The Great Gatsby: Chapters 6-7

(1) “His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people — his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all.”

The author is comparing how some children in society view there parents just because they aren’t successful. A lot of sons and daughters are embarrassed by how their parents don’t make a lot of money or have great jobs. Not accepting their parents for who they are the children start imagining fake parents to impress their friends or just cope with having unsuccessful parents. That is why their imagination can not accept who their parents truly are because the “fake” parents they made up are truly better in their mind. The sad part is no matte how hard parents try or show their love the kid still doesn’t accept their parents because it is not enough for them. (121 words)

(2) “He stayed there two weeks, dismayed at its ferocious indifference to the drums of his destiny, to destiny itself”

People are always puzzled by how destiny works and spend time trying to figure it out. The author compares drums to destiny because destiny can always change like the beat of a drum. That is why no matter how much time a person spends trying to figure out what their destiny might be, they won’t because it can change at any time. The author is trying to get people to just try to live their life and not worry what destiny has planned for them. If the person lives and doesn’t worry how their life will play out or how one thing will affect it, they will spend more time living then wonder what is destine for them. (120 words)

(3) “Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall."

Summers are very hot and just unbearable sometimes in life. This causes people to live different lives because they aren’t motivated to get out of the house due to the heat. When fall comes around the season is more calm and enjoyable, unlike summer where the people are miserable. In fall people are going crazy like the characters in Great Gatsby wondering when this heat will end. That is the point the author might be trying to get at is times might be tough right now but fall is around the corner and life will start over. (98 words)

(4) “It occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the well.”

The author believes the biggest difference that set men apart is if a man is well or sick. This is very true because when a man is sick he is weakened in the mind set and can not compete with some one who is well. That goes the same with race because a sick white male will not be able to compete with a well black male and vise versa. This is a big difference because what if the next president becomes ill and can not think straight and makes a far less intelligent man seem better to the public. This is why being sick or well is a great difference in a man. (114 words)

(5) “There is no confusion like the confusion of a simple mind”

A person with a simple mind is easily convinced by anything that is said with confidence. By having a simple mind the person will fall for anything so if two people tell this simple minded person two opposite things they will believe them. This will cause confusion in their mind because they believe both but do not actually think about who can be telling the truth or trying to trick them. That is why there is no confusion like this kind because the simple minded get confused all the time even over the easiest ideas. (95 words)

Non-Fiction Blog: Commencement Speech

The author’s argument is that people try to strive for “perfection” but this brings pain and unhappiness in a person’s life. The argument is true because that is how people are today because they want to impress other people by being “perfect”.

            The main crowd that tries to be perfect is the teenagers in college or high school. These kids are trying to fit in with the crowds of high school or college but in reality they are just wasting their time. They are trying to become perfect in every little thing in life which is hard to do because that means impressing everybody the person comes across. The teenagers do not realize that this brings more emotional and mental stress to them by attempting to become perfect.

            The author says for the people who are striving for this perfection should just drop that backpack of bricks and become your own person. When the person does this they will realize that life becomes way easier and way more enjoyable. This is when they discover in life what will make them truly happy and not just trying to satisfy that person in their life. That is because the person isn’t worrying about having to impress but they are accomplishing things that matter inside and make them happy.

            If people think about it they are unique because they have one thing that no one else has and that’s their fingerprints. Now thinking about this why would you want to become perfect for someone else when you were made to be unique and different from anyone else? That’s why it is a lot more hard work to be perfect than to just be yourself in life.

             The author makes another great point that this crave to become perfect could be caused by the parents. When children are growing up the parents make a lot of decisions for them. Some of these decisions that the parents make aren’t what the child really wants. By doing this they are implanting into the kids head that if they do not do what will make their parents happy then life won’t be good. Which when the kids are growing up to teenagers they remember this and try to be perfect to impress all of the people in their life, like the parents.

            To fix this problem parents could probably ask the child what they want to do or let them pick out things. This would put the image in the heads of kids that life is great if they just be themselves and not try to be perfect ruining their life with stress for this goal. 

            In the world today life is always changing and to keep up with being perfect the person would have to follow every time the rules change. Trying to be that perfect person in this world is more like the person is just telling a lie after a lie. Even though the world is a very judgmental place it is just a lot easier to be a unique individual than being someone who tries to impress everyone in the world.

(525 words)