Eleanor and Park; Post-Reading

    It is true that you can’t fix yesterday but you can fix what you do today. For example when Park says” yesterday happens” to Eleanor she realizes what she did and starts fixing herself to be a better person.

    Eleanor and Park were misfits for each other from the start and they knew that it would be hard to overcome. They had to work extra hard like convincing each other that they liked each other(and eventually love each other), had to please Park’s parents which took a while but after his mom and Eleanor bonded over make-up, Park’s dad soon followed suit. Also, Eleanor was always picked on and for her to have someone care about her was different. It took a while for her to understand that someone could care about her. The night that the quote takes place is one night when she comes over, at the beginning of their relationship she didn’t come over much so the first time was very nerve racking for her. She, of course, was just trying to protect herself against the feeling of being cast away. So she reacted in a way that would get her out of there. She didn’t know what the consequences of her acting that way would be but she found out the next day. That is when Park tells her that he was a little upset Eleanor realizes that she didn’t need to act that way. She realized that he would never intentionally hurt her.

    This quote also might mean that things happen that are similar to what might be known as a “yesterday”. Most people think of what they did yesterday as something wrong, so in this quote Park might also be trying to make Eleanor feel loved and now that she only hurt him a little and that she can fix it and he won’t be mad at her. He might have thought that she acted the way that she did because she didn’t feel welcome. So when he says “yesterday happens” he is trying to make her feel better and understand that he has a lot of “yesterday's” too.

    In conclusion whichever way you take it, from Park’s side or Eleanor’s, they both were just trying to make each other feel better about their relationship.

Eleanor and Park; Pre-reading Blog

    Most middle school students don’t realize that there is a significant difference between the words “like” and “love”. There are many different areas in life were this could take place even in a teenagers life.

    One area that this could happen is with dating. Everyone understands that middle
school dating is not the same as normal dating where you might actually go out.
In  middle school they don’t really go out they just text and give each
other looks in the hallway. So how does the word that you choose make a
difference? Well for one thing people are used to hearing the word like in
middle school and the word “love” with their parents whom are most likely
married. So especially in middle school when you’re going through changes in
your attitude, hearing the word love can set off an alarm. Once that alarm goes
off there is no stopping it until you move on to a different person. This is
often the first time a teenager will feel that feeling of insecurity in a relationship.
On the other side, however, when they hear “I like you”, they feel good about
themselves and they feel like there is one more person who cares about them in
the world. They feel like they are in a good place, even though most the time
they don’t know what that feels like anyway.

   Another area that this could happen is with food. Many people can say that they like a
food but if you really like it then you could say that you love that food.
There is a significant difference there. If you say that you like a food most
people will take that to mean that you enjoy it but would not like to eat it
often and don’t think about eating it often. But if you say that you love the
food that means that it is something you want all the time, and for special
occasions like your birthday. It also is the kind of food that when you get
home from school you can’t wait to eat that snack. This applies a lot to a
teenagers life because as we all know, teenagers love to eat (not like, love)
and eat a LOT!

    I can see this applying to Eleanor and Park because it says in the blurb that
they are different and not seen together well but fall in love anyway. There
could also be an argument in the book about the two words we have been
discussing and that could lead to the “break-up” part of the book (most love
stories have them).

    In conclusion I think it is better if we all think about the weight of our words
before saying them and what they could mean to each other.

Touching Spirit Bear;Post-Reading

Touching Spirit Bear;Post-Reading

    Cole Matthews and Peter Driscal at the beginning and throughout the book were enemies and frankly were afraid of each other until the very end. They ended up collaborating and Peter helped Cole put a carving at the bottom of his totem pole for his dance of anger. That is where the quote “Life's a circle and every part of a circle is a beginning and end.” I am choosing to use this quote for my blog.

    When I hear this quote my emotions get mixed up. How can something be a beginning and an end? I also think that it means that everything will always be the same and that gets boring. If you are constantly going in the same direction it has to get boring. But it does say that you get a beginning and an end so maybe it is just like life, but you keep on going.

    It applies to the book because it kind of shows that you get a second chance like Cole did. He totally blew his chances by burning the shelter the first time and then hurting the Spirit Bear. Then he got mauled by the Spirit Bear, nearly died, but they rescued him. They took care of him and got him a second chance on the island. If they hadn’t returned him to the island than he could have become paralyzed and not have ever recovered his soul.

    I think that it also applies when it talks about Peter Driscal’s recovery. He sustained something very traumatizing. It also made him very insecure and made him attempt suicide two times. If he had not had the courage to face his fear and go to the island than his circle would have never even have been drawn. He started it and because of that he was put in the circle of recovering.

    In conclusion I think this quote talks about the circle of life and how when you choose to start your circle that you are immediately insuring that you will be okay. Remember, this only works if you have good intentions.

Touching Spirit Bear Pre-Reading

A totem pole shows all the things a person values in their life. Those could be many different things like your family members faces, your favorite animals, favorite color, lots of things.

    One of the things I would probably start with would be a horse running in the field with a falcon overhead. I would pick this because horses are my favorite animal. Also because they represent freedom and playfulness. Also many people see a horse as a traditional Native American symbol. The falcon flying with the horse shows the bond between different animals and not just within their own kind. The falcon also represents freedom and taking off and leaving the nest. With the two together it reminds me personally of a movie that touched my heart a lot. It was called “Spirit” and in this they talked about how the Western expansion affected the wild horses and the horse Spirit is a wild mustang and he and his partner fly along together and when Spirit gets captured he is tried to be freed by his falcon friend.

    Another thing that I would put on my totem pole would be a flashlight because it represents light in a unique way. Most people would put the sun or something like that because it represents pure light but I would want mine to be unique. The flashlight would represent the light that is easy to harness. Often in life we look at the dark side of things when really all we have to do to see the good side is look. For a flashlight, literally speaking, all you have to do is flip the switch. Then you have light. So unlike the sun a flashlight will never go away. Sometimes all you need is the light ray of light to give you hope.

    I would also add a cross because it represents 3 things, my family giving me the faith and tools to learn it, Jesus’ trust in his father,God, and the sacrifice he made for us. All of these things would factor into my totem pole.

    There are so many important things in my life that I would need to put on the pole but there are just a few. I look forward to this book.

Orphan Train Post-Reading

     “The things that matter stay with you,seep into your skin”,this is the quote coming from a childhood full of awful memories. Yet she made it through. In this blog I will touch on the finer points of what we think she is trying to tell us and give examples from her own life and how she knew this at a young age.

    The girls name in this book is Vivian. Or that is what she goes by now. But when she was very young and not yet on the orphan train and still had her family her name was Niamh. She was born with that name and it stuck with her. She never forgot about it because it was meaningful so it seemed into her skin and once something does that, it is stuck there forever. It might be a good or bad experience. Then a family called the Byrnes adopted her. Mrs.Byrnes was very tight and American so she changed Niamh to Dorothy. Vivian calls this in the book her “American Name”. After that she went to another family when the depression started and they kept her name as Dorothy.

    As time went on living with the Grote’s(her new family) didn’t work out and she went to live with her teacher who found her a new family. These people were much nicer and gave her everything she needed and a little bit more. They were rich. Now these people had lost a daughter and her name was Vivian. This is how Dorothy became Vivian. The point of this story is to show you that even though you might think that she would forget these names she didn’t because they matter and will stay with her until the end.

    She also stayed with many people along the way throughout her life but there was one person she will never forget. She met Dutchy on the orphan train and remember him until the night in the Cities that she found him again. She remembered saying to him that she would find him and they did find each other. She also remembered the name of the people that took her in, even the Grote’s children’s names. She remembered them because without them her story would have been very different.

Human Nature Essay

“So God created humankind in his image,in the image of God he created them;male and female he created them.”-Genesis 1:27. I think humans are good because the quote above shows that were made in the image of God, of who which is good. So how are we good per say? Let’s take a look.

This year I was given the privilege of going to Washington D.C for the third time. As I researched for something different to see I stumbled across a place called the Newseum. They had an exhibit on the Berlin Wall which was what stuck out to me the most. After only a short period of convincing my parents gave in. The day we arrived my eyes went straight to something else. There was an entire room dedicated to photographers and newspaper writers that had died while taking picture or recording information during dangerous times. This shows the dedication us as humans have to our jobs. The photographers were simply spreading the word for what they believed everyone needed to know and got captured, tortured, or killed. Another example of this is in Night how so many Jewish and other Non-German people were killed. If they even showed signs of standing up for their religion, they would be shot on the spot. This is why people are good. We stand up for what we believe in.

    In the exhibit there was one photographer that stood above the rest. He was a simple man that had no idea what his pictures would mean. He was in 9/11 and had thought that he could make it and still get pictures. Probably two things were going across his mind. How he had to get people to know what was going on and how much praise he would get for getting those pictures done. Unfortunately he died in the dust cloud that the South Tower made when it collapsed. They found his wallet, his shoes and his camera. Only a few pictures were able to be saved. This shows that he left everything behind to get his job done.

    My second statement is proof that before we were even born,we were good. This is a direct quote from the Bible,Romans 5:1-5,”Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand;and we boast in out hope of sharing the glory of God.And not only that,but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” This quote lists all the things God blessed us with. With all that inside us we are good. God knew what he was doing. He knew that we would be tempted to do wrong so that is why before we could do anything wrong, he installed greatness in us. We are good from the core.

    Martin Luther is an example of a person know they were good and doing something about it. He used his gut reaction to do what is right to place the 99 thesis on the wall. He could have not looked deep down and found that but he didn’t because that is not what humans naturally do. We do what is right.

    We take our gut reaction and use it to make right choices. This is my last statement, our right choices. We know that deep down we are good. This thought gives us motivation to do what is right. We are good, and people do use it. In Lord of the Flies, Ralph used the motivation of knowing that he was a good guy to get himself through the tough times, like when Jack was hunting him down.   In Night, Elie didn’t steal his father’s bread even though everyone else was and he was extremely underweight and hungry. In biblical times especially during the Passover and the Last Supper, the disciples made the right choice of sticking by Jesus until Easter morning.

    In our present century there is a man that used his goodness to make a right choice. This man’s name was Welles Crowther. You might know him as the man in the red bandanna. There is a documentary about him. What this man did was while he was in the South Tower on 9/11 he saved 12 people. How did he do this? He shout to help anyone if you could and to follow him. They followed him down the stairs but instead of going with them, he went back up. He didn’t keep going to save himself, he went back to save others. He died when the South Tower collapsed. This story proves that humans are naturally, born, and are good.

    In conclusion humans are naturally good and we know it. We have seen, read, or heard about the great things people do. We can’t deny that people didn’t risk their life of others in 9/11. We can’t deny that God didn’t give us good life. How are we here then? We should proceed knowing that we are good people.

Pre-Reading Orphan Train

Pre-Reading Blog

Orphan Train

By:Abigail Breeggemann   

I am choosing to do my pre-reading on the difference between chance and fate. I can already feel that this book has a very powerful connection with the two words. However there is a major difference. Through this blog I will convince you that the difference between these words is great.

Let’s start with the word chance. A lot of people associate the word chance with gambling. That is true.  For example in a game of 5 card draw there is no way of telling what your cards are going to be. You could get really good cards or really bad cards.There is nothing you can do to change your cards. With fate,however, you can decide what your next “move” is. That is the big difference here. Fate is up to you, chance is not. Now fate is not always determined by you. But you actions can alter your fate. Fate is planned out but you can change it. For better or for worse. Another thing I would like to add is the actual definition of the word. The reason I am doing this is because everyone’s personal opinion could be different but the definition never changes. The actual definition of fate is(using Webster’s Collage Dictionary) “the power or agency supposed to determine the outcome of events before they occur;destiny”. The definition of chance is “the happening of events without apparent cause, or the apparent absence of cause or design;fortuity;luck”. The key word in there is luck. Unlike fate, no matter what you do you cannot change your “luck”.

Also note that most people think fate as unchangeable. Only in some rare situations is it actually not changeable. You control your life and that’s how I think this word applies to the book. The main character thinks that her life is going to be all bad. Then she meets the old woman and is told that her fate can change.

Going into that, I think the word chance comes up when the girls life first starts it is simply chance that she was born an Irish immigrant. Chance is not always a good thing. 

 In conclusion I hope I have shown you how these two words are different.