Virgin Suicides by Jefferey Eugenides

I’m not very far into this book yet but I think that I’m starting to grasp what the book is mainly going to be about. Since it starts out describing the tragic death of one of the Lisbon family daughters I am guessing that the story is going to follow this family and their troubles. What I really find interesting and perplexing at the same time, is that the summary of the book clues in that the main character of the book is a neighbor boy and his friends who watch the Lisbon family and their personal troubles- but I believe that what this coming of age novel is going to really show us is not how these boys were each effected by the deaths but how each girl that died grew up and was forced into such a situation.

If you think about it death is one of the most obvious and startling ways that can change someone or help them to grow. In their life you see a person: a walking, breathing, being with a heartbeat and a brain... but it’s only till that person is taken away from the world that we truly begin to see them as part of life. Many people around the world often wonder why so many humans become famous only after their death... we’ll have you ever heard the saying,

"You don’t know what you've got till it’s gone"? We look and we see the impact they had on the earth, we see the stain that their life left on everything, because we can’t see the indent of someone’s footsteps until they have already moved forward. What a death can do to someone is that it can shock them in such a way that strangely they begin to come to peace with their own life, they begin to see the atomity of their problems and just how much a life means.

It’s rather sad to think that to learn the exact value of a life you must lose one, from the moment we gain such a spectacular thing shouldn’t we then know what a gift this is? But on a positive side to things, a death can truly give you that last leap you need into growing up... into really beginning to realize who you are.

What this book for the mean time reminds me of is a quote from another book I read over the summer, this book also dealt with a sad story of a suicide but from a more personal view. What the main quote that stuck out to me was,

“Unless you learn to wrap your brain around the fact that you are eventually going to die, you'll never wrap your arms around the fact that you are currently living.” to me this really shows what death and coming of age meet where everything that could ever explain what it means to grow up comes together. It’s much harder to know that right now you have blood coursing through your body being pumped from your beating heart, then to know that one day that might just stop.

Also on another topic I’m not sure but I’m beginning to suspect that these sisters who all committed suicide, had a suicide pact? I wonder if in a book like that they will ever explain that.

Response to Lab Grown Meat Study

This article, "Meat from Scratch" by Stephen Ornes, explains how scientists are working on the production of meat made in a lab rather than meat made by killing animals. This idea of lab grown meat will be very beneficial to the environment in the future.

One way this will be beneficial to the future is it will save our decreasing land and diminishing trees. In the article it states, "The population of the planet is increasing, which boosts the demand for meat. The amount of land available for raising livestock probably wont be able to meet the increasing demand for much longer." This shows that by using this lab engineered meat we can keep the trees we need to give us carbon dioxide and save precious land that we could be using for other things.

Another way that lab grown meat can be beneficial to the environment is it can help stop the polluting of our soil with pesticides, and the production of greenhouse gases. Stephen Ornes writes in the article that, "Moreover, raising animals for food can take a toll on the environment. The practice increases pollution and boosts levels of greenhouse gases, which increase global warming." This is an example of the fact that that killing animals to make our meat hurts our earth and contributes to all the other factors of global warming as well. If we use lab grown meat perhaps the issue of global warming could decrease and help to save our ozone. 

The fact that we must kill animals to get our meat right now is harming the environment around us. Using non grown lab meat is causing precious land around us to disappear and trees that provide us with carbon dioxide to vanish. Non lab grown meat is also adding to the pollution of our soil and production of greenhouse gases. With lab grown meat though, we can help to prevent all these things from happening and save the environment. Possibly the production of engineered meat will cause other problems due to chemicals that they are using, but that's a question for future studies.

Plagiarizing Q's

What the student that wrote this response did wrong was they incorporated another writer’s work without listing the source/ giving credit to the original author. That is called plagiarizing which is not only illegal but is unfair to those who worked hard to write something and won’t be able to be recognized for it. What the student could have done to include the source correctly was to use a quotation mark to separate his writing from the other authors writing and they said where this quote came from so the writer got credit. If the student didn’t want to do that, they could have tried to paraphrase the chunk of writing, which basically means to put them into their own words but keep the idea and concept.
An example of a way the student could have used the original source correctly by paraphrasing is:
"There is a night sky filled with swirling clouds, stars ablaze with their own luminescence, and a bright crescent moon."- www.vangoghgallery.com, "A Brief Understanding of the Starry Night Paintings." (No author).
The night described above is from the painting by Vincent Van Gogh "Starry Night", this sky is filled with a lot of detail and the scene is familiar to many people and therefore that many people are content with; because Most of us can look up- and all see a starry night.
Three ways to avoid plagiarizing is:
One, You can use a semi colon or a comma and quotation marks to separate your writing from another writers that you are using in your work. Don’t forget to cite the source the quote comes from.
Two, you can paraphrase the chunk of another authors writing you would like to use by putting it into your own words. It will work just the same, as long as you keep the original idea of the quote.
And three, you could summarize the writing.

My response to Joyce and Jamila's Blog Posts

I read over Joyce's piece about the huger games, "Gale vs. Peeta" and thought that it was a very well structured and interesting thought provoking piece. What I liked most about the reading response was how she asked questions to her readers. This I thought was unique and something to follow after because it got the reader thinking about the writing in more depth and got them more focused because they could interact with her words. What I also liked about her writing was she doesn't write it in boring plain paragraphs, nor does she only share her opinions on certain parts of the book. What Joyce does is she in cooperates a sense of her voice and her emotions into her words so that the reader does not feel like it is reading a piece but maybe listening to her voice tell them about it. Another blog post that I read over and enjoyed was Jamila's response to Tupac’s song. What I liked a lot about this response was how she really got inside his mind ad explored his thoughts on this song even further, she took his original ideas to a new level. Another thing that I really enjoyed was how she took what she picked up from the song and used to create ideas about life ad connect it to the world.
I learned a lot from just reading their two responses and want to try some of the things that made their posts so good in mine. One thing that I want to try in my blog posts is trying to engage my readers more in my writing, like asking questions and sharing my feelings and emotions so that they are more interested in what I have to say. Another thing that I would like to try is to elaborate on my ideas further- I don’t want to end at just the end of the thought; I want to take it further to new levels. I’m very excited to use these new techniques, hope it helps my writing.

Romeo and Juliet, Act 3

This book has become much easier for me to understand- i can’t get every single word but now at least i am able to grasp the simple concept of each characters dialogue. And with my new understanding i have notice the following things about the book:

• Benvolio is the calm level headed character who always tries to fix everything. Ex: he tries to convince Mercutio to keep his peace with Tybalt Act 3 SC 1 51-54
• Secondly Mercutio is the opposite of Benvolio, he is easily angered, and ill tempered- which i have realized purely stems out of his pride as a Montague and his protection over his dear friend Romeo.

• Lastly Benvolio and Mercutio are a lot like the two characters that we met in the very beginning of the book, Sampson and Gregory. Sampson is hot tempered and eager to pick a fight with Tubal- while Gregory like Benvolio wishes more to keep peace. Wish interests me because in that scene Benvolio steps in to keep peace.

Because i understand these things i have been able to come to final and main conclusion that the story relies more on the secondary characters than the main characters themselves. Without the characters like the nurse and Benvolio and Mercutio, Tybalt, and Paris; this story would be nothing.

I believe this because we start to see their startling effect on the story line in the very beginning of it all. When Romeo is saddened over Rosaline’s rejection it is Benvolio who convinces Romeo to go and crash the Capulet’s ball where Rosaline would be- it is also he who tells Romeo that he must look for other beauties among the guests attending the party. If Romeo had not attended that party, he would have never seen Juliet and then have never made his first acquaintance her- therefore never falling in love. Also if he had never attended this party then Tybalt would have never spotted him and never been able to pick a fight with him which he would later attempt. Then it is Mercutio who starts a fight with Tybalt when Tybalt comes looking for Romeo- and is slain in the battle. If Mercutio had never begun that squabble then he would have never died by Tybalt's hand and Romeo would have never killed Tybalt in revenge. And so if Tybalt had never been killed then the prince would have never banished Romeo- And lord Capulet would have never made the hasty decision to marry away Juliet to Paris in 3 days. 

All these actions are because of the small events stirred by the secondary characters- without them i have realized Romeo and Juliet would be a story of no importance and probably never have become so famous. It is the troublesome love and irony of the story that made it so famous as a literary piece of art; but without those who surround Romeo and Juliet the story would be nothing but simple love- an everyday thing we see commonly in all books.

This popped out to me so much because it reminded me of how all the events in the real world actually work. Nothing happens without something setting off the chain of events first. It’s the smallest things that we don’t even realize happen that affect our lives so greatly- it’s even the most distant of people from us that cause our lives to change so drastically every day. Every breath, every movement, every life, changes us and the world around us. The story of Romeo and Juliet reminds me of the butterfly effect: A butterfly beats its wings in china, and stirs a tornado in the Caribbean.

Dear you,

Romeo and Juliet so far is a very interesting but hard to understand play. Because the language is different from what I am normally used to, and because I keep having to check the definitions on the left side of the page- paying attention and comprehending the story and what is going on becomes difficult and confusing! From what I can understand so far though is that there are two families: the Montague’s and the Capulet’s, The Montague’s are Romeos family and are very disliked by the Capulet’s. Bonvolio, a cousin to Romeo has seen him wandering about at night- while his father explains how he locks himself up in his room all day supposedly sleeping. In the story so far Juliet has not been introduced but Romeo has attended a party with Bonvolio to try to forget a girl that he loves that does not return his feelings, and this is where I am guessing she will come in. About the characters so far I understand that Romeo seems to me like a free soul that does not like to be confined by rules or status based on the way he sneaks out at night- and that Bonvolio is a calm level headed guy that likes to keep the peace based on the way that he tried to break up the fight between the servant Sampson and Abram. I also understand that Tybalt is a very angry hot headed Capulet who is quick to draw his sword and start a fight,  and Capulet and lord Montague believe one another is the foe. The prince seems to take no sides in these arguments and seems to only want to put an end to all this fighting.
If you want to take on this book then I strongly recommend re-reading the pages. Just by looking back at one sentence won’t help you to understand what they are saying, you must read the page again, scan the definitions on the left side and apply them to the text; basically my main advice is to take this very slowly and carefully because I have learned that it is easy to get lost in the old fashioned words that mean one thing when we think it means another. Also when a particular character has a very long speech, of course it is important to know what they are saying but as long as you grasp the basic idea and it makes sense with the other characters reply’s then there is no true need for you to spend an extended period of time trying to grasp the context of each and every sentence.
As you read this book I would like for you to help me seek some answers to some questions that I have. Why does Romeo escape in the late night? And why doesn’t this girl that Romeo is so infatuated with like him back? These answers could be right under my nose but there is so much going on is sure I skipped over them. When you read this book right back to me if you are able to find the answers.
Best of luck,
Sincerely Caroline Bozzuffi

Response to Another sonnet for stephan by Alvin lester sitomen

This sonnet I feel is from the perspective of a father to his son, as his son grows through life and as he leaves it. An observation I had while reading this sonnet, is that at the end of the poem Sitomen says that " The boy, the youth, the man are each now gone except in my heart they linger on." When something lingers it seems to me a faded but there presence of something, the remains of what had been there before- I think this shows how though Stephan is still alive within this man like anything else he has begun to fade a sense of moving on. I notice in this poem that this boy, this man, is described in a sense of perfection, see through admirer’s eyes- this person full of wealth of intelligence and yet not anything deeper than pure observations made from an outsiders view. My interpretation of this Sonnet is that it shows the void between Stephan and Sitomen, the unspoken and unbreakable wall keeping them apart.

I think this because in the sonnet the writer keeps repeating the line "I see", never are the words "he is", "there was", said in the sonnet. This shows the void between them because it’s the author explaining his observations what he could physically see and absorb from a distance- it doesn’t lead into Stephan’s thoughts, his take on life, why he turned out to be this way- it doesn’t even allude to who he was. These words only explain the character that Stephan portrayed to the outside world, to those that could look upon him in awe, to those that admired him from afar and all his success. If I were to say "I see a nice man walking by," it simply wouldn’t make sense, your eyes are the only part of you that can’t get to know a person a real level, that can’t tell them apart aside from looks from every other being on this earth. "I see" can only show you the cover of a book- not what is on the inside. Therefore this shows the distance between them how whoever admired Stephan so greatly could never know him on a personal level.

Another reason I believe that this poem shows the void between Stephan and the writer is because as I mentioned before this man and boy is described in a sense of perfection. He seems to be everything that people strive to be and yet I know for a fact that this cannot be who Stephan truly is because no one has can reach perfection. I think that because the writer is only seeing him from the outside he does not know the darkness that lingers within him, he does not know the bad secrets that hide beneath the surface, he cannot see all of Stephan’s regrets and mistakes. The way the author talks about him is as if Stephan is an untouched masterpiece unstained- it’s the way you could talk about someone’s art when you stand back and see all of its glory, without knowing the artist, without knowing the story behind its brilliant strokes.

To conclude I believe that another sonnet for Stephan is about the distance between the writer and this Stephan. I believe this to be true because of how amazing and unrealistically perfect this man is described as and how the author keeps repeating the very distant words, “I see". But maybe if the author wasn’t trying to convey the void in their relationship he could also be trying to convey the closeness of it. That no matter what dark secrets bad pasts, stained memories Stephan possessed, the author could look past that and only see the good in him only see his virtues. And maybe that’s why Stephan continues to