Make Up Blog: Hamlet?

Hamlet is straight up crazy. As if Hamlets life wasn't bad enough in the beginning of the story with his father dying, he sees a ghost, which make me think I'm crazy, he starts talking to the ghost and finds out that it is his father and that he was murdered. I think those two events could make even the most stable minded person go crazy. Then, he goes and makes it worse by acting crazy. You just can't do that. I think the acting crazy part is what made him go fully crazy. What's even worse is that the people around him know he is going crazy, but they don't try to help him at all.
The fact that Hamlet won't do anything to the king is making me lose even more faith in him. He's going around making a fool of himself in front of all of his friends to try to kill the king for murdering his father, but when he has a chance to he doesn't, and when he tries to, he kills the wrong person. If I was Hamlet after those two incidents, I would start to believe that fate doesn't want the king to die and would stop right there and confess that I was only acting crazy.
What's Hamlets deal with Ophelia? In act one, he grabs her and confesses his love for her, but a couple acts later, when she is all over him, he doesn't want anything to do with her. Instead of taking the oppurtinity to get the girl that he loves, he pushes her away, and it really confuses me. I don't know if he is doing it to protect her for when he kills the king, or actually doesn't love her anymore.

Make Up Blog: College

Well, the stressful time of applying for all of my colleges is almost over with only one more school to go. So far, I have applied for Centre, Transy, Mercer, and Butler, and I've already gotten a reply from Mercer. On my way home from school on Friday, I got a call from Mercer saying that I have been accepted! I wasn't really expecting to get a reply so soon, since I just submitted my application a week ago. The lady I talked to might think that I'm a akward depressed person because when she told me, I didn't sound excited, I probably sounded sad because my brain was dead from a calculus test and all I could think of saying was an akward "thank you", which an akward moment of silence. Plus, I was talking to her while I was driving, so half the information she was telling me about deadlines and scholarships went in one ear and out the other.The only college that I have visited has been Centre, and I loved it. Right now that is where I want to go, if I get accepted. I plan on visiting Mercer sometime soon, but I don't think I will be visiting Butler, even though it has a wonderful pharmacy program. The only college I haven't applied to yet is UK, which I am using as a backdrop school. My plan for college so far is to go to Centre and major in pre-pharmacy there, then apply for UK's pharmacy program and hopefully make it in, and then transfer there my junior year. Although Mercer and Butler have great Pharmacy programs, I would prefer a school that is close to home, such as UK and Centre.

A Clockwork Orange: The Good and the Bad

This story was really... strange. I don't know if I even liked it or didn't like it overall, but there were a couple of qualities of A Clockwork Orange that I really disliked and a couple that I did like. I'll start off with what I didn't like about it. First off, I didn't even know what I was reading about for the first couple of pages thanks to the weird dialect it was written in.Thankfully, sparknotes had some pretty good chapter summaries available so I could actually understand some of what I read. I don't know if Burgess wrote it that way just to confuse his readers, if they actually talk like that in some country I've never heard of, or if he took a hint from Shakespeare and realized that good literature needs to hard to read. Second, every other scene made me feel extremely uncomfortable. Rape and violence seemed to be the only thing going on in this story. It was rare when a chapter went without a gang beating up an old person, or raping a very, very young girl. But it was even worse that I would read some of these scenes and not even realize what is going on until I read about it on sparknotes.
Now for some things I actually liked about A Clockwork Orange. First, it was a very unique read. I have certainly never read anything with a story like it or a style of writing like it. It's style of writing was also fascinating because it was almost like trying to read a bunch of mixed up words. Second, it was a very nice length given how hard it was to read. If it were any longer I probably would have given up on it and selected a different book. But, considering it was kind of short, it was very descriptive during the parts that I could understand.

Beautiful Words

Never before have I ever though of a word being beautiful, except for its pronunciation maybe. I didn't expect normal words such as coffee or smirk to be one of the nine Cousineau would be talking about. I thought he use words have a lot of silent letters, or maybe an accent or two, or really really long word. I don't even understand how he came up with these words. He talks about how the words "celebrate the choices that await us when we dip our brush onto our brilliant palette of language", but wouldn't that be any word in the dictionary. It may just be me, but I don't think coffee or ramble are very brilliant words. For a word to classify as beautiful to me, it would have to be unique. It could have some letters that I like, such as k, m, z and q thrown in it, have a unique pronunciation with some silent letters, and have a somewhat cool meaning. Now, I don't really know many words that qualify with all three of those restrictions, so I will have to resort to a dictionary.
1)Giraffe- a tall, long-necked, spotted ruminant.
2)Quartz- one of the most common minerals.
3)Ice- solid form of water.
4)Avocado- pear shaped fruit.
5)Soliloquy- a person talking to his/her self without awareness of anyone else.
6)Eloquent- having or exercising the power of fluent, forceful, and appropriate speech.
7)Xenolith- a rock fragment from igneous rock.
8)Maple- a type of tree
9)Qualm- a sudden feeling of apprehensive uneasiness

Make Up Blog: E-Books

On my 13th or 14th birthday, my parents bought me a nook. At first, I hardly ever used it for anything except school required books because I hated reading. But as I started discovering new books that I liked and realized I actually liked to read, it started to get a lot more use. The only time I have ever had to get a real book was because a teacher of mine wouldn't let me use my nook in class because he though I was playing games on it. Now that our school has it's new technology rule, I have seen some kids taking notes on Ipads, and have seen many kids reading on readers. The idea of using readers or other electronic devices as textbooks sounds like a good idea. Every year, I have almost broken my back carrying what felt like 100 lbs. in my backpack from textbooks. But if we used readers and downloaded textbooks, kids wouldn't be walking around leaning forward because there backpack is too heavy. Even though it could solve plenty of problems, there are still some issues that I could imagine causing some trouble. First, the problem of getting to a page quicky and going back to other pages. On my nook, it is a pain to get to a certain page, because I have to drag a little dial until it is close to the page I want, and then have to go through the pages until I reach it. I don't know if that is a problem that only I have, but I could see that causing problems for classes that might have notes in the textbook, such as math. Second, money is always a problem. While some readers are cheap now a days, there are still families who struggle with money, and may not be able to afford a reader. I don't know how the fees for books currently work, but I could not imagine a public school being able to buy every student a tablet to use as a textbook. So, with that being said, I do believe that readers are the futures of textbooks, but maybe in private schools sooner that public schools.

Make Up Blog: Drawing the Line on Books

As a high school student, I have never had a problem with any books that I have been required to read. Even when the book has had very explicit scenes, like American Gods, I have never found any of it offensive. As "young adults", kids going through middle and high school are supposed to be familiar with violence and sex, and be able to know the difference between fantasy and real life. But, I do believe there is a line we need to draw for what is appropriate for a literature class. I don't believe there is anything wrong with violence in a book, especially since most classic literature we have read in class is heavy in death and violence. But, I think books with heavy amounts of sexual content can make any student feel uncomfortable. I'm not talking about a story having one or two sex scenes every so often, but when a book is based around sex, I believe that it is innapropriate for a classroom. Thankfully, I have never seen or been required a book like that, because I could imagine how awkward that class discussion would be. As for younger kids, I believe there is a time when they need to step up from fairy tale violence and experience violence that would be in a more realistic in literature. Like with movies, you can't expect a kid to grow up and keep watching g or pg movies. When I was 10 or 11, I watched my first rated r movie, even though I wasn't suppossed to. My friends and I watched, what you mentioned in class today, 300, which might not have been appropriate now that I think about it. But, as I watched it, I remember thinking how much different it was from anything I have watched, and how it actually showed blood. After that, I was never satisfied with pg or pg-13 movies. Books can be like that. Someone may think some books are innapropriate for a certain age, but reading a book that is innapropriate could reveal a whole new world of books for that kid. Sorry I got kinda off topic....