Tales of Tenth Grade

For my blog post I decided to make an excerpt of a comic incorporating some of the components of the  hero journey such as Call to Adventure, Refusal of Call, and Crossing First Threshold. 

What remained of his eye was slathered all over his hand. It oozed out from betwixt clenched fingers, dripping a milky trail unto the barren earth. Blood poured ceaselessly from his eye socket, trails of crimson and carmine running together to smear a reddened mask along his face. Had he been able to feel, Oedipus would have been in great agony. But alas, he was numb.  He fled. Into the desert, into forgiving nothingness. The skyline of Thebes had long since faded behind him, sinking into the horizon until it lost all definitive shape. Yet he stumbled onwards, the only pervasive thought on his mind relentlessly tugging him away . All he had to his name were the grimy clothes on his back and a fate fit for the cruelest, crudest of men. He had lost his kingdom, his daughters, his honor. What did one have if he had lost even his honor and valor? And so he did all that one could in his position: he ran.   Death was preferable. Indeed, it was the desire for dea...

     My original plan for this blog post was to watch every movie I could find that tells the story of Beowulf and then rank them based on how worth it it is to watch them. I figured that I would have more than enough choices to work with, after all the poem has existed as long as film has ten times over, giving filmmakers plenty of time to make interpretations of the story. But surpisingly, I could only find two movies across multiple platforms excluding the movie adaptation of the novel Grendel . My two choices were the 2007 moive titled Beowulf , which we all watched scennes from as a class, and the lesser known 1999 movie by the same name with Christpher Lambert. Here's my review of the latter.          This version of the movie caught my attention because its description, whih stated the movie is set in a dystopian future. I was interested in how the story would adapt to this setting.      The story...

  P ictured below is two-year-old Liam Michael Meehan, the boy I have babysat for approximately one year and a half now. For those who live with significantly younger siblings, you know the feeling of wishing you could place a book over their head to prevent them from growing up. However, I feel incredibly thankful and lucky to be a part of his life. I am the youngest in my family. I never had someone I could dote on until now. Throughout my time spent with him, I noticed Liam has gone through several distinct phases (I refer to interests rather than physical stages of development). No matter what phase he enters or leaves, I love him unconditionally. 1. The "Baby Shark" Phase - Liam must have listened to the Baby Shark song a minimum of six times per day - no exaggeration. This exceedingly annoying, yet catchy tune never failed to stay in our heads hours after he would leave. Bothersome as the song was, we used it to our advantage; whenever we needed something to subd...

Is your path already pathed? Can you change what is going to happen in your life? These are the questions that make me second guess every decision I make, whether it will alter how my life will play out. With the new year only 4 hours away, will everything that happens already be predetermined or are my choices what decide what happens?  No one will ever know the true answer to this so this year, I'm taking every day as it comes. There is no point in worrying about every choice I make when eventually, I believe, everything will work out on its own. This past year I have been so scared to make any decisions with the worry of how it will affect anything in my future. This year, if I feel like it's right, I want to be able to commit to choices and just roll with it, and not worry so much.  This idea of destiny and my future is about school, college, jobs, everything. It will all work out in the end so as of now, doing things I enjoy like certain sports and activities but a...

Are We the Masters of our own Destiny? By Riley Taylor Destiny is a funny word to analyze.  Websters dictionary defines it as, " the events that will necessarily happen to a particular person or thing in the future." Destiny has been shown in many cases over the year in the books we have read. This is mostly shown in Oedipus in his predetermined fate.  Destiny is normaly viewed as something that cannot be changed. However, I believe this is far from the truth. If this was true, than we would live in a society similar to the one depicted in the minority report. People will ALWAYS do what is predetermined. If that is the case, then why hold anyone accountable for anything? It's all because of fate right? The answer is no. This is not the case whatsoever. everyone is the master of their own destiny and can mold their future into whatever they desire. Now obviously there are some limitations to this, but destiny and fate are two opposites that mean more of the same...

In English class on the last day of school of 2019, we were asked to reflect on our year.  Filling out the best songs I listened to and movies I watched this year was easy. But when I got to questions like "What was your greatest adventure this year?" or "What was the best part of your year", I wasn't able to answer them. During class I skipped over the questions, but later in the day it really started to trouble me. Had I really not done anything exciting this year? So many people say high school was such a fun time, and I started to feel like I was missing out on something. Why was I not having the same experience in high school as every other teenager? And then it hit me: it's all what you make of it. I was having so much trouble thinking of what fun things I did over the year because during the year, I wasn't appreciating the fun things. I took for granted all of the times I spent with my friends- laughing so hard tears were coming out of my eyes...

In class so far we have read many books, some in class and some out of class that we got to choose. I'm gonna give a brief description of the books along with how I felt about them. Beowulf: Many people believe that the story of Beowulf was "boring" and "hard to follow" that it wasn't their favorite read of the year. Now I'm not saying I am one of those people but following Beowulf's adventures against these monsters 2nd period in the morning wasn't easy. It wasn't my favorite read so far, but the overall story was interesting. The Pact: For out first unit we got to choose a book to read from a list and then used it for further assignments. I choose The Pact which was a story that followed two high school teenagers who have been friends forever and dating now for several years. But one tragic night their parents are called to the hospital after the teenage girl, Emily, is found dead and her boyfriend, Chris, is found next to her. The book...

Communist China is a region with a history of unjust detention and labor camps.  Only five years ago, China abolished the "re-education through labor", which forced people without trial to labor for years.  Now, as of August of 2018, a similar system is arising in the region of Xinjiang, located in Northwest China. According to the Chinese government, these new camps are focused on detaining minority groups such as Muslims, Uighurs, and Kazakhs in order to prevent temptations of radical Islam, and to help them escape poverty, provide job training, learn the Chinese language, and to become "modern people" who are useful to society.  Unfortunately, this propaganda is only part of the truth and there is still much more injustice to be revealed. The first event started in August 2018 in which an official target goal from the Chinese government was to send 100,000 citizens from Kashgar to the camps.  Kashgar is predominantly populated with the minority group of Uigh...

Many older generations preach to people my age about how we spend to much time buried in our phones. I will have to admit I do understand where they are coming from. In certain situations such as family dinners, holidays, and other sociable events of that nature, we shouldn't be glued to our phones. However, after waking up at 5am, going to school for 7 hours, and then going to practice for 2 hours I think it's acceptable to relax a little. In this day in age, relaxing isn't reading a book, newspaper, or magazine for most people. For me, and for most people my age, relaxing is defined as watching Netflix, scrolling through Instagram, answering Snapchats, and/or laughing at TikToks. All of these activities are on our phones and although some expert can spit out all the data in the world about how our phones aren't good for us, this is how we have grown up and this is our world's new normal. I wouldn't say our phones, specifically social media, are stress-free but...