Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Dreams

Sometimes i dream
As real as they may seem
But they are fake
For god sakes.

I dream of flying
I dream of dying
I dream of places
And familiar faces.

I wake in fright
In the middle of the night
Sometimes i scream
But it is just a dream.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

OMATS Essay Final Draft

Old Man and the Sea Essay Assignment

The setting of stories is critical to the plot, plot events, action, and what happens in the story. In this story, The Old Man and the Sea it takes place in the Gulf of Mexico and Cuba around the 1940’s or 50’s. The main character is a serene old man Santiago who is a fisherman struggling to make a living because he hasn’t caught anything in a long time but is optimistic and not for a second does he think he will not catch a fish. In the end he catches a marlin on his way back home to bring it in a shark eats his marlin. In this story the setting influenced the plot and the action of the abstract story heavily.
The story takes place in Cuba in the mid 1900’s. Just this alone heavily affects the story. Because he’s fishing in warmer waters the type of fish he catches would have been different if he were fishing in the north. He would have never caught a marlin in the first place. If he had lived in a more recent time he would have more advanced gear to fish with and maybe some different methods. Santiago is also worn by the sea and it affects the tone of the story and how it’s told. Pg. 10 “The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its reflection on the tropic sea were on his cheeks.” That quote shows how the harsh sea and the weather affect him.
If he didn’t live in an area where the economy was based so much on fishing and people working to survive he maybe would have been able to succeed more and maybe fish would have been worth more. Since he lives in Cuba where the economy is mainly based on fishing he struggles to survive. Pg. “The successful fisherman of that day were already in and had butchered their marlin out…” This quote shows that fishing is big and there are a lot of successful fishermen and it means that he’s the one who’s not successful. He is the unsuccessful one because he lives in an economy where there is a lot of fishing competition. The author uses a precise location for the story to take place to form the plot.
Because Santiago was out at sea for most of the story the plot seemed to not progress that much until the end where the setting help to form the end of the story because the sharks ate the marlin, and that would not have happened in Maine, so the setting is important. For the whole middle part you see that the old man is very lonely because he is alone with the sea who is his only friend. Pg. 16 “once there had been a tinted photograph of his wife on the wall but he had taken it down because it had made him too lonely to see it.” This proves that he is very lonely because he has no one to relate or talk to and being at sea most of the time doesn’t help his cause, instead it makes it worse because now he talks to himself all the time. Also if Cuba had a better economy he would have been able to make more money. Instead because there is so much competition in the market he is not able to succeed and doesn’t catch any fish.
The story would have been much different if this story took place somewhere different than Cuba and the Gulf of Mexico. Because there is only one character and you don’t get to know him that well you feel detached from the character for the whole story. The story had very complex and descriptive details but because it took place in Cuba and in the Gulf of Mexico, and mainly at sea, the plot and the action seemed to drag on and it had a tough time progressing until the end which is tense.

Monday, March 30, 2009

OMATS Rough Draft

The setting of stories is critical to the plot, plot events, action, and what happens in the story. In this story, The Old Man and the Sea it takes place in the Gulf of Mexico and Cuba around the 1940’s or 50’s. The main character is an old man Santiago who is a fisherman struggling to make a living because he hasn’t caught anything in a long time. In the end he catches a marlin on his way back home to bring it in a shark eats his marlin. In this story the setting influenced the plot and the action of the abstract story heavily.
The story takes place in Cuba in the mid 1900’s. Just this alone heavily affects the story. Because he’s fishing in warmer waters the type of fish he catches would have been different if he were fishing in the north. He would have never caught a marlin in the first place. If he had lived in a more recent time he would have more advanced gear to fish with and maybe some different methods. Santiago is also worn by the sea and it affects the tone of the story and how it’s told. Pg. 10 “The brown blotches of the benevolent skin cancer the sun brings from its reflection on the tropic sea were on his cheeks.” That quote shows how the harsh sea and the weather affect him.
If he didn’t live in an area where the economy was based so much on fishing and people working to survive he maybe would have been able to succeed more and maybe fish would have been worth more. Since he lives in Cuba where the economy is mainly based on fishing he struggles to survive. Pg. “The successful fisherman of that day were already in and had butchered their marlin out…” This quote shows that fishing is big and there are a lot of successful fishermen and it means that he’s the one who’s not successful. He is the unsuccessful one because he lives in an economy where there is a lot of fishing competition. The author uses a precise location for the story to take place to form the plot.
Because Santiago was out at sea for most of the story the plot seemed to not progress that much until the end where the setting help to form the end of the story because the sharks ate the marlin, and that would not have happened in Maine, so the setting is important. For the whole middle part you see that the old man is very lonely because he is alone with the sea who is his only friend. Pg. 16 “once there had been a tinted photograph of his wife on the wall but he had taken it down because it had made him too lonely to see it.” This proves that he is very lonely because he has no one to relate or talk to and being at sea most of the time doesn’t help his cause, instead it makes it worse because now he talks to himself all the time. Also if Cuba had a better economy he would have been able to make more money. Instead because there is so much competition in the market he is not able to succeed and doesn’t catch any fish.
The story would have been much different if this story took place somewhere different than Cuba and the Gulf of Mexico. Because there is only one character and you don’t get to know him that well you feel detached from the character for the whole story. The story had very complex details but because it took place there the plot and the action seemed to drag on and the plot had a tough time progressing until the end that is tense.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

The Thief

On the coast of Florida in a small jail there was a man named Todd who was an inmate for 5 years now and was serving life in prison rape and murder. He was very stalwart, he was about 29 years old, and he was big with 5 o'clock shadow. One day while in the jail yard he had been deftly working on digging a ditch under a bulwark and that one day he finished it and on that day he finally escaped from prison. The hole was finally large enough to fit through. He planned it perfectly while the guards were too distracted on watching the new inmates enter the prison off the bus. He slipped under the bulwark to the other side and he sprinted, tripping over his own feet across the green field, across an estuary, and into the mangrove forest.

It took about a day to reach Miami and he lived in the city for about two weeks. One day a kind lady approached him with a very happy and open countenance. She worked at a shelter where they took in people from the streets. He had been wearing and old tattered shirt and was very dirty and displeasing. She hesitantly offered to take him in to their home and he accepted the offer. She couldn’t just let him live out on the street alone. She decided now that she would instead of send him to the shelter she would bring him home.

He was lying on the couch watching TV and the woman was tending to his every need. She wrapped poultice cloth around his cut on his leg he had gotten on the street. “So what’s your name anyway?” Said Todd.
“My name is Laura” she said.
“Do you live here by yourself?”
“No.” she stated, “My husband and I live here together but he’s at work right now.”
“Oh.” He said disappointingly, now his plan would be much harder with another person in the house.

At supper that night the husband, Jim, came home from his long day at work and saw Todd sitting at the table. “Who is this!?” said Jim surprised.
“This is Todd.” Said Laura, “He’s going to be living here for a while until we can get him back on his feet.”

Jim didn’t say anything else and he just let it go. Todd told him about himself but no that he escaped form jail. He embellished his story and said that he was a previous business owner whose business went bankrupt to make him sound a little better. Todd could tell that Jim didn’t care for him and that he was only wanted in this house by Laura.
As time went by Todd began to gain Jim’s trust. Todd had his own job and he was actually making decent pay. Todd was now thought of as a part of the family. Todd knew that now he could finally fulfill his plan. He decided that he would do it tonight when they were sleeping.

After Jim and Laura went to sleep Todd snuck out of his bed down the hallway and into the closet of Laura and Jim. He was being as quiet as he possibly could. He remembered to bring some tools from the cellar and he went over to the safe and opened it. He took all of their stuff he took, money, bank; account numbers, passports, and even went into their wallets and took their credit cards. He ran into the driveway and he started their car and drove away. He dumped it into the ocean where no one would ever find it.
When Jim and Laura woke up they called the police and the story made the all the tidings in the local area. Todd had been living under a false name so no one really knew his real name, it was really Tyler. Todd thought he had made out perfectly and now no one could stop him.

After about a month when he thought things had cooled down Todd went to the bank to deposit some money. He opened the account of Laura and Jim. What Todd didn’t know is that the police had been waiting for an inkling or someone to open the account of Jim and Laura so that they could catch him. The bursar signaled to the person working in the back of the bank to call the police.

Right after Todd deposited his money he casually walked out the door without a care in the world when he heard’ “Freeze it’s the police!” Todd dropped his stuff and just surrendered without ant fight at all. He was handcuffed and walked through all the fracas to the cop car. Before he knew it he was back where he started in the first place doing life in jail, it was déjà vu all over again.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

ORB #1

First Quarter Outside Reading Book Review
Misery By Stephen King. Penguin Books, 1988 Genre-Realistic Fiction
The setting of this book takes place in Colorado during the winter time. The story is about an author, Paul Sheldon, who is working on publishing his book and when he is finished he starts traveling to New York to have it published. On his way there he crashes in a bank of snow and is found by a lady, Annie Wilkes, who claims she is his biggest fan and is obsessed with him. She used to be a nurse and takes Paul in her house to heal him. Paul realizes soon after that she is crazy and just is capturing him to be with him and have him rewrite his story just to add her in it. When she left the house one time he saw a photo book of her life and realized she was a laid off nurse because she neglected her patients they died. Whenever Annie left Paul would sneak around in his wheel chair. When Annie realized she chopped his foot off with an ax. In the end Paul ended up killing Annie and escaping.
A quote that I really liked from the book was, “There comes a point when the very discussion of pain becomes redundant. No one knows there is pain the size of this in the world. No one. It is like being possessed by demons.” (Pg. 77) I picked this quote from the book because it really describes the point of the book in about three sentences. It is about the pain he endures throughout the book and it pretty much summarizes the whole book.
The author's writing style in this book is a very mysterious type of writing throughout the whole book because you don't really know a lot about the book until you get far into it. At the same time though it is a very suspenseful book and will always keep you at the edge of your seat. This book is like most other Stephen King books because it has a very weird but unique plot and it is suspenseful like his other books but this one wasn't as scary.
I can't pick a particular quote from the book but I can mention a part from the book that matches the authors writing style. When Paul is writing his new story he asks Annie to go to the store to get new paper so he can sneak around when she is gone and get the kitchen knife and the medication she gives him. While he is sneaking around in the house Annie returns to the house and it is a race for Paul to get back to the Bed before Annie gets inside. That was a very suspenseful moment in the book and that is an example of the authors style.
I really like Stephen Kings books but only the believable ones because I hate unrealistic books. I don't particularly like these types of books because I haven't read many but I thought the way he made it suspenseful really kept me into the book the whole time. This story line will stick with me for a long time because it really sticks out to me above any other book I've read and it is unique. Overall I really enjoyed this book and would give it a ten out of ten.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Priced vs. Priceless

Ryan Piquette
9-30-08
B Block

Priced vs. Priceless


All items that you own have a price and a specific value to you but the things we can't put a price on are what really mean the most to us inside like special moments or memories. No one really realizes what they have until later on in life. So why do we take everything for granted? What really makes something special to you?
It sounds like there is thunder surrounding me in every direction but really it is just the drone of the engine. The thought of being 30,000 feet in the air can sometimes frighten you but at the same time thrill you. Normally when this is happening it probably means that we are on our way to Florida. Excitement fills me and I cannot wait to land and finally arrive.
The airport looks familiar to me now after being here so many times before. The familiar people and the familiar atmosphere are all a routine for me now. I always remember the first step outside being the best and feeling the warm dense air hit your skin and at that moment nothing is more relaxing than that. The condo in Florida is not far from the airport and on the way there just looking at the palm trees, ocean and the great sunset make it seem like your in paradise.
The beach is white and the ocean is about 87 degrees about the same as the air temperature. You can sometimes go into the ocean and not come out for hours. We usually spend our days at the beach in the powerful sun making memories and having the greatest ties of our lives.
$300 can get you relaxation and happiness. That is the value of my iPod. Whenever I am having a bad day or something is bothering me I can just listen to my iPod and forget about all my worries. To me it is very relaxing listening to music and it helps me concentrate better. Whenever it is time for homework I listen to my iPod to focus me and inspire me. My mood can also change when listening to music, it depends what kind but I mostly listen to all kinds. With my iPod I can go on the Internet, watch videos, check weather, stocks and much more. It can always help me to get through a bad or boring time like if I'm riding in a car maybe going to Maine or going to the beach or a game or even waiting for something my iPod can entertain me and help the time to go by much faster. I can also use it with my friends or family and use it in the car. It is one of my favorite items in my house and possibly my favorite thing I have. It is also great entertainment and I use it just about every day.
So you could buy your relaxation by buying an iPod or get it by going on a trip to Florida. They are both very fun and will always put you in a good mood no matter what. So I guess you could say that you can get the same thing out of both of them, relaxation. Or they could both be entertaining to you. They also both allow me to drift away and to forget all my worries because of the extreme relaxation they both present.
Even though I just explained how they are very similar they are both very different at the same time. My iPod to me is an item and going to Florida to me is something I do and a memory or thought, so in general they are different things. Ipods can also preform specific tasks which going to Florida can't do. But Florida is also something much larger and more in-general than an iPod. Like I said iPods can relax you but you can't go to and iPod and relax but you can go to Florida and relax at a beach or pool or even in the sun. A moment to me though is worth way more than you could ever price and iPod.