Pain and Beauty

In the story “Ribbons”, by Laurence Yep, the grandmother shows signs reflecting the culture she is used to living in, the Asian culture. For example, she treats Ian, her grandson, better than her granddaughter, Stacy, because in the Asian culture boys and men are everything. Women have little to no rights and receive little attention. Also, when Stacy attempt to show her the dancing she does with ribbons on her shoes the grandmother loses it. In her culture ribbons were used to bind young Asian girls’ toes behind their foot. It was considered to be “beautiful” in the Asian culture. The Grandmother was disgusted by them because that is what happened to her when she was a little girl. She was ashamed by them and never spoke of them and told people who knew never to speak of it. When Stacy found out she didn’t know what to feel. A mixture of sadness and awkwardness overcame her when she found out the whole story. She was not used to the culture, being born in America. She later tells the grandmother she feels sorry and shows how beautifully she can dance with the ribbons to prove that they don’t only bring pain.

Reverse-Racism

In the story Mrs. Wilson is acting overly nice to her son’s friend Boyd. This is a reverse-racism situation. She has assumed that since he is black he has no money, home, or food to eat. As you read throughout the story you find that Boyd has father who possibly makes more money than Mrs. Wilson’s family does and that others in his family are finding success. When it states that “Mrs. Wilson felt defeated” it means that she felt awkwardly that she was wrong about Boyd. She then tries to overwhelm Boyd with a very large offer of clothes they don’t wear for free as if she were almost forcing him to say he was poor and needed them. When Boyd rejects the offer and mentions he has plenty of clothes Mrs. Wilson starts getting angry. She thinks that just because she saw someone who is black living on the streets that all of them must be poor. 

The Challenge of Enjoyment

Author's Note: The challenge that pleasure and enjoyment bring is more than often worth the hard work that is needed.

 Have you ever had that one thing in life that felt challenging but exciting? For me that is what  physical activity is. It’s the challenge in life that brings you big rewards, brings you excitement, brings you closer to your friends. It is life’s way of saying challenges can be hard but you should try and make the most out of it whether you win or lose. Physical activity provides challenges and enjoyment.

The challenge that physical activity brings is what it is all about. You’re always trying to push yourself to meet your goals and improve on your previous progress. The whole point of training and practicing is to beat a time, a height, or a distance. It’s about putting in a large amount of time and effort so that a large reward can come out of it. If minimal time is put into achieving goals then very little can be brought out of the experience. It seems that if physical activity were taken away there would just be a big gap in most people’s lives because they lose the enjoyment and encouragement that this brings.

Challenging as physical activity may be it can also provide lots of social interaction. Many people are persuaded by friends to sign up for sports so they can talk and enjoy the sport even better. A friend may just want another friend to come workout with him so that they can keep a conversation going or push each other to do better. Both of these experiences have happened to me and it helped me to enjoy physical activity and encouraged me to more sports and workout more. Now I always try to encourage my friends to join sports and activities that I’m doing or considering doing.

Physical activity may provide you with more social interaction but also enjoyment in general. My overall mood is changed because of physical activity. I feel that I am a healthier person and generally feel good knowing that this is my lifestyle. With one of the goals of physical activity being to stay healthy or get healthier I feel very accomplished. This accomplishment makes me enjoy myself and encourages me to do better at other things such as my education. I accomplish more things there and just enjoy myself that much more.

With the enjoyment, socializing, and challenges that physical activity brings it would be ridiculous to not give it a shot. It is a great activity that could improve your lifestyle in more than one way. Who knows, you may find that along the journey you find something even more like a new friend or renewed friendship between old friends. No matter what happens that outcome of physical activity will always bring a smile to your face.

A Sad, Evil Story

Something I thought was well done in the movie was the sad and creepy music at the beginning of the film. While this is a sad story you would expect to hear sad music, which you do, but the small twist that is added gives the music a sense of evil or dread. I think this is very appropriate since some things said in the story and film are very evil. For example, when the younger waiter makes comments such as "you should have killed yourself last week" that is just pure evil and sets that tone of creepiness.

One thing I didn't agree with is ow they represented the waiters. The story has them being twenty to forty years apart in age but in the film they seemed almost the same age. Maybe one did look a bit older but not by much, maybe a few years or so. I can understand if the director's resources were limited but I would have liked to see someone older play the role of the older waiter. However, I thought that the old man was perfect for the role of the old, deaf man. He looked old a fragile which is what I would expect to see for an old man who is deaf. That was a wise choice by the director.

Selfish

The young waiter in the story reminds me of Horace from the Ranger's Apprentice 1. These two are both self-centered and they don't know the consequences of their actions until it's too late. For example, the young waiter tells the old man that he should have killed himself just because he wasn't going to leave the bar and he wanted to go home. Horace betrays one of his peers and ends up getting themselves captured and his peer killed.

Sacrifice

Author's Note: It's never easy to follow the path that contains sacrifice. However, it sometimes hurts more to not take that path at all. Learn how this fact is contained in the story The Icebound Land, by John Flanagan.

If you had a choice of having a life of peace and plenty or risking your life to save a friend so close he feels like a brother which would you choose? In the book the Icebound Land (John Flanagan) many people take the chance at having their friends back rather than a peaceful life. An apprentice ranger named Will, a close friend to many, is captured by ruthless warriors. While those close to him are forbidden to go look for him most ignore that option. Sacrifice was the solution to many problems in this story.

One problem that was a major part of the story was the fact that Halt was bound by honor to stay and do the bidding of the king instead of going off to search for Will. The solution to this problem was that Halt had to be banished from the kingdom. By doing this he would have no honor binding him to do the pitiful tasks that the king needed done. However, banishment would mean giving up his life as a ranger and destroying everything that he has worked on in his lifetime. Halt decides that this boy is worth more than all of it and takes his chances getting banished and chasing after Will.

While Halt’s solution of sacrificing much of his own life Will’s solution for saving Evanlyn includes the same, if not larger, amount of threat towards his life. Will has taken a vow to protect the innocent girl that he found on his journey before being captured. When Will finds out of Evanlyn’s royal blood and that their captors’ leader, who rules with an iron fist, has sworn to end any and all royalty he knows keeping her safe means he has to give everything. When they are forced to work among other slaves Will takes the mighty blow of the life threatening labor leaving her with the safest chores. The only way for Will to survive his injuries during these jobs is to take a vile drug that amputates the mind, destroys memories, and makes the person a mindless walking drone.

While Will’s life threatening solution is very courageous, another solution of courage is made by Horace, Will’s closest friend. Horace’s problem is the fact that he has been driven mad by grief at the loss of his friend. He chooses to embark on a quest to save Will by traveling with Halt. By choosing to travel with Halt he puts his own life at risk. While Halt is trained in the art of stealth to sneak past many obstacles Horace is often left behind by Halt and is taking the hammering blow of the obstacles.

The best solutions for characters in this story are by means of sacrifice. They have decided that the aura of happiness that their friend carried about him is more important than a peaceful life. The thought of hearing the unsynchronized laughter of the conversations they had is something they want to hear again. Their lives contain no happiness without this person and they must have him back.

Irony in the Ransom of Red Chief

In the story the Ransom of Red Chief, I think the mist important quote in the book is when the father of boy asks for 250 dollars to take the boy back because it introduces the main feeling of irony in the story. This is also enhanced by the fact that the two main characters end up paying the father the money to take the boy back because they think they'll go mad if he stays around them any longer.