English

One Day in the Life of Charlie

2008-10-05T21:57:00.000-07:00

It is Thursday. School is about to start, but Charlie is still in a deep slumber at his house. As he sleeps, freshmen, sophomores and juniors at Phoenix Country Day School rush to their lockers and to class, trying to avoid a tardy. Teachers stare at the clock as class time nears. Some make in time right before 7:50, but others are not as fortunate. Charlie's alarm goes off, but he refuses to get up and presses the snooze button. On Thursday's, Charlie is one of the many seniors that have a free first block, so there is no need to get up yet. His cell phone begins to ring, and he answers it without knowing who it is. It is Bruce, and he wishes to know where Charlie is and if he would like to grab some Jack in the Box before second block. Charlie, who is still half asleep, is not in the mood for fast food yet and tells Bruce that it would be better if they went to Jack in the Box during lunch. Bruce agrees and hangs up. Charlie gets ready and drives off to school.

He makes it just in time for second block. There is a variety of expressions on the faces of all of the anatomy students because Dr. Crane had said yesterday that she expected to be finished grading all of last week's tests. And she did. Everyone nervously stared at the pile of sheets on her desk. Slowly, with a smile on her face, she picks up the stack and begins to return the tests. Charlie is the last student to have his test returned. Dr. Crane placed it on his desk, facedown. Charlie took a deep breath and flipped it over: B-. Charlie was neither disappointed nor glad, nor was it what he had expected. On his previous test, he had gotten a C-. This last test was obviously an improvement; however, he had studied exhaustively for this test. But at least he was improving.

Everyone goes to Dorrance for third block. There are no speeches today, so Charlie takes a nap.

It is now fourth block and Charlie has photography. But he has already finished tomorrow's assignment, so Mr. Cook allows him to leave early for lunch. He realizes that Bruce has a free and quickly reaches for his cell phone in his left pocket. He waits for Bruce to answer as he walks toward the upper school office to sign out. Still no answer. Charlie enters the office and sees Bruce signing out; his phone is in his backpack and it was out of battery. They walk down to the student parking lot and drive off to Jack in the Box. They each order the usual: crispy chicken strips with medium curly fries and a medium sprite. Fourth block is now over and they decide to spend the rest of lunch at school in the student center.

Sixth block is AP Spanish. It is Charlie's worst class. Sra. Gilbert walks over to her desk and picks up a stack of papers. Is it a study guide? Is it a work sheet? No, it was much worse. It was a quiz. Charlie had forgotten about it and did not study yesterday. His heart is pounding franticly against his chest. Sra. Gilbert hands Charlie his quiz and he begins to examine it. The quiz was not on vocabulary, which relieved Charlie a bit. It was on yesterday's video, which Charlie remembered quite well. He finished his quiz feeling very confident he will get a decent grade on it. Class ends and Charlie walks over to seventh block: Statistics.

This is most likely Charlie's favorite class. He enjoys math and he loves Mr. Guthrie's sense of humor. Time quickly passes by as Mr. Guthrie teaches his students about standard deviations. As Charlie sits in class and takes notes, he wonders what time it is. He refuses to look at the clock because time always seems to go slower when you want it to speed up. He is persistent and class ends somewhat faster then it usually does.

He leaves Mr. Guthrie's room and walks over to the computer lab. He drops his backpack by the door and joins his peers in Rock Band club. Charlie is extremely talented at playing Rock Band and Guitar Hero. He is so talented that he sometimes wishes he could play the real guitar, but he is too lazy to actually take lessons. He waits in line for others to finish playing. Half an hour later, Charlie finally gets his chance and performs well as he usually does. One song was enough. He walks out of the computer lab and walks toward to the student center and buys a Powerade. As the electrolytes and potassium quenched his thirst, he notices that there five minutes until class is over. He walks back to the computer lab to pick up his backpack. Charlie walks down to the student parking lot and drives back home. Nothing special or interesting happened that day; it was just one day in the life of Charlie.

Nora's character

2008-09-22T00:07:00.000-07:00

In "A Doll's House", Nora, the protagonist of the play, completely changes her character from naive and immature, to someone who wants to no longer live a lie and roam freely without having to keep something hidden from the world. But why does her character suddenly change?

In the first act, we see Nora trying to prove to Ms. Linden that she is not as innocent as she may seem to be. She describes to Ms. Linden how big her deepest secret is and how terrible it would be if anyone were to find out. Ms. Linden, as well as the reader, learns that Nora had forged her father’s signature right before his death. At this point, the reader may wonder why Nora is telling Ms. Linden such secrets. Earlier in the play, it was mentioned that Nora had not spoken to Ms. Linden for many years. So why would Nora tell Ms. Linden her biggest and only secret? Naivety could be a possible answer.

Was forging her father’s signature really a base action? The answer is no. However, in some ways. she seems proud of what she had done. She was so proud that she had to tell someone about it, and Ms Linden happened to be that person. Any one with common sense would know that secrets of this magnitude should never be heard by others. And not only she tell someone who is basically a stranger, she gloats about it, as if forging her father’s signature someone makes her a more reputable woman. At the time the play was written, a good reputation was all a man ever really needed in life in order to succeed, while women fulfilled their duties at home as a wife and as a mother. It seems Nora wants to be more than that. We get hints of this when she tells Ms. Linden her secret and at the end of the play when she says she wants to be more than just a wife and a mother. She also says she did not see “the miracle” that she had been waiting for. She believed that once her husband had learned everything that he would not get mad at her and that e would take the blame for everything; it obviously did not happen. At this point in the story, she realizes that for her entire marriage she had been lying and keeping a secret from her husband. Once Helmer found out, Nora was somewhat relieved that she no longer had to hide anything. Nora’s character seems to change near the end of the play right before she and Helmer begin to talk. It could have possibly changed because she had finally had understood the situation she was in.

The King vs the People

2008-09-11T22:43:00.000-07:00

Creon's pride blinds his judgement throughout most of the story and decides to punish Antigone and Polynices. He does not simply want to penalize these two for committing crimes; he does it to demonstrate his rights and power as king of Thebes. He believes that the city is given to him though royalty and that he can do what he wants with it. When the Sentry tells Creon that the body of Polynices has been buried, Creon quickly accuses the Sentry of being bribed commit the crime. The Sentry swears he is innocent but Creon is stubborn and wants someone to punish.

He says his motive for finding the culprit is to enforce the laws and punish the criminal, but it is his pride that drives him. Once he discovers that Antigone was responsible, he quickly punishes her. Then slowly, one by one, people around him, even his own son, tell him that his decisions are not what the people of Thebes believe to be the right thing to do. Creon is persistent until Tiresias, and even the Leader, tell him to free Antigone. As individuals, no one could overpower Creon. But the city of Thebes as a whole easily cleared Creon's stubborn mind.

The Lovely Bones

2008-08-25T22:44:00.000-07:00

"My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973." (pg 5)

The Lovely Bones starts off strong, and after having read the first two lines, I already began to have several questions. Why was she killed? Will having a dead narrator make the overall story more or less interesting? There is rape and murder in the first chapter and the narrator is dead.
Books and movies usually start off slow and build up suspense for a climax; Alice Sebold, the author, decided to put the climax in the first chapter and that really caught my attention. After reading a few more pages, I had a positive impression on the book. Another thing that caught my attention is that it seems Alice Sebold never intended to make The Lovely Bones a religious book. In Susie's heaven, heaven is whatever she wants it to be; there is no sign of God, and religion is never mentioned. Instead, heaven is where Susie begins to be able to keep an eye on her family and friends. Nevertheless, she becomes frustrated that she cannot communicate with anyone on Earth, and she is also bothered by some of her family members' actions. So even though she was in heaven, she was not completely happy all the time. Her mother, Abigail, had an affair with the crime detective, Fernerman, and then she later left her husband, Jack, for years.

Not many stories have a dead narrator. The idea of having the main character in heaven from the start is really interesting because it is difficult to make a good plot. However, Sebold creates a heaven where Susie, who is an omniscient narrator, can see her family and see how they are handling their loss throughout the years. Most of the action happens down on earth where the Salmons look for Susie’s murderer and try to recover emotionally. Susie learns that she cannot talk to or communicate in any way with anyone on earth and she wishes she could tell her friends and family that her murderer is Harvey, but she is unable to. So while all the action happens on earth, heaven is where we see Susie's deep personal thoughts. Eventually, detectives find out that Harvey is a serial killer after he moves away from Susie’s neighborhood. In heaven, Susie grows and matures, and learns to let go and accept the fact that she will never be able to speak to her family or friends.

So having a dead narrator actually turned out to be an excellent idea. Sebold knew that Susie would never be able to contact her family and friends, but she still knew how to make a good story. Susie explains to the reader what is happening down on earth while she explains what she is feeling. She describes how helpless she feels and how she wishes to be able to do something about her murderer. These and much more are ingredients for a good book; that's why Peter Jackson will be making a movie of it in late 2009.