We are all Zebras

Author's Note- I was thinking about how sometimes we don’t realize how things really are, or how we really are. We may think we appear one way but we really are something different. I'm not exactly sure how but I connected this to zebras. Maybe in the way that we think our stripes look one way, and when we see our reflection in the water this is what we see, but really nobody else sees our stripes this way. Sorry if you didn’t follow that at all, but this is what I came up with. It is almost like a closed poem, in the way that it flows together and it has a pattern but not really because there are sentences and more complete thoughts. I wasn't sure how to end it so any recommendations for that would be appreciated. Well let me know what you think of it. Thanks

We are all Zebras

What if we were really all zebras? Having no idea whether we have white stripes or black, or if we are really fitting in or sticking out. At one place we would be camouflaged  in our surroundings but in another we are sticking out, the center of attention. Although we really aren't camouflaged at all, because the only one searching for us is color blind, so we are safe, hidden by the color of life. Now by the waters edge, we look in to see our reflection. Only seeing the faded black, and off-white whites, that put us together. Not seeing though that these shades, might just, complement each other.

What if we are really all colorblind? Looking out into the world only seeing the blacks and whites. Not knowing that we are missing out on the rainbow of colors that we haven't yet discovered for ourselves. Happy with just the bases being covered and nothing in-between.

What if we were really all zebras? Believing for a moment those around us are just copying the stripes on your back. Then looking back into the water, now you’re the one colorblind, not the predator searching for you. You are the lion. Hunting down yourself, until you are just part of the scenery. Now, though you don’t have to be afraid that you will be seen or get caught, but just lying low in the grass of your desert.

What if we are really all living in the safari? Searching for water, when you wander too far away, although lost at sea when you are too close to "home." Sometimes gazing into the distance is seems to be a desert, deserted by nothingness, but other times it seems to be a jungle filled with the vines of life to just grab onto.

What if we were really all zebras?  Galloping through the world, like it doesn’t matter, like there are no worries, like there are no lions. But there always are, and always will be. Maybe just created by our mind, although maybe really there. Never  knowing for sure. Looking into the shadows created by the sun, and finding another zebra, seeing the faded blacks, and off-white whites of their stripes, but finally seeing complete.

 

Expectations

Author's Note- This is a response to The Memory Keeper's Daughter. The first part is more in relation to the book, and the second part is more of a journal entry.

We all have expectations for our lives. Of where we want to be in a month from now, of who will be in our lives forever, of the success we will achieve, of the happiness we will experience. Caroline now 30, not meeting any of these expectations for herself, looking back and realizing that she is not who she always wanted to be. She is alone. She has no family that loves her, like the man loves his lost wife. She never had that, although always expecting this love would just come. This success, this happiness would just come without first.

We always put everything off until a moment from now, which turns into a minute, an hour, a day until they all add up to equal months and years and a lifetime slipping away from our grasp when a moment ago we could have just gripped hold. Not realizing that the rope of life was just in our hands but now believing that the rope has slipped now. Although really it is just burning away coming at us from the other end, but we really still have it right in our hands, and all we have to do is hold on. Hold on to it whipping us around in the spirals of life, to create a final picture eventually put in a frame if someone else has seen the creation, but only if that happens.

The Memory Keepers Daughter

Author's Note- In this book, a man has twins. The son is normal although the daughter has down syndrome and he gives her away as though she is nothing. 

What if you were one of two

But in the mind of another

Only half

A half which doesn’t matter

Although it does

Because a half plus another

Equals one

A half though

Somewhere else

or here

Could be someone else's

two

This Long Road

Author's Note- One day we did a journal entry as a class starting out with this long road. I took this long road as the road of life with no ending, but writing in literal terms of a road. When you read it don't think of an actual road though, think of your life. Please give me some feedback to make it better, thanks.

Staring ahead

Eyes looking down into darkness,

darkness of the pavement.

Then looking

an inch away from the tip of your toes,

to the bright yellow dashes of happiness and glory.

Although only coming in dashes,

Broken up in the eternity of black

Still surrounded on both sides by a white pureness, keeping you in line,

so you don’t get off track.

 There is no end to this road.

Going on in both directions, for forever.

Not remembering the absolute beginning,

Not knowing an end

Not seeing the end of the path ahead,

If there even is an end.

We have gotten this far already, its not like you can just veer off to the side, over the edge,

as the adventure is almost over,

or possibly just begun.

The sun smiling down over head,

but could turn into a frown at any moment,

But seeming as though that is impossible,

as though the only thing left for this days walk, is the blue sky, and puffy white clouds.

But maybe that is just what I see;

although all that matters, is how I perceive it,

 to get

 where I am going.

When where I am going is no place at all,

 just a race, with no finish line

now I am just at a pit stop, for this moment

along this long road

Truman Show

We are all the same. To some extent, by which we all are programmed the same. We each think everything is just for us at times but then we each think that we are part of some other master plan, which technically we are. Each of us are just a little part of something bigger, but still each of us are that something bigger.

The only way to win is to make it all the way to the top, but that’s not even winning because all of the fun is in getting there. It doesn’t even matter where you end up because you are there, and that’s where you are, and it can change, because your life is always changing unlike in his world. When life isn't moving anymore it really isn't life. Its like its on the path of death, because life is being alive, and the world changing creating something new from moment to moment. Sometimes there is routine but nothing ever is exactly the same, and if something is too perfect it isn't real. Although that is now what our lives are. They aren't real.

The end is only a new beginning, a completely new beginning in this case. Although a new beginning isn't always better. A new beginning contradicts everything from before and you don’t know what is real or not. Also a new beginning is reaching the top, even though there is always a higher point which you can reach, but you might just not be able to see, like the wall of clouds. Things sometimes seem different from where you are and you cant always see the whole picture, but when you do all you see is a picture and you aren't in it anymore. 

Dreams/Odysseus

Author's Note- My poet is W.S. Merwin who wrote Odysseus. Odysseus is about history repeating itself over time, tricks, hope, loyalty, traitors and becoming one. I wrote about dreams. Dreams being dreams, of what you can become or being stories you have thought of, with "What if?" beginnings and endings. Dreams from long ago that are forgotten and later rediscovered and remembered. I tried to use the same line patterns as W.S Merwin, so please let me know how I did. Thanks for reading.

Dreams

Never having any limits to break,

No restrictions, no story dreamed unwritten

As it had never been thought of before.

Later forgotten over time

Then remembered, by something

That triggers a memory, and keeps living

Recreating the fantasy. There were the people

Each important in their way through your story

To be created, and one to be "real"

Everything that could have happened

Imagined into being real

Or not. Although its not. But sometimes thinking

That it is life forgotten

Which is really just a story actualized

Adventures that will never happen,

And considered, alive, reality, and lies,

Is there ever an awakening?

Odysseus

Always the setting forth was the same,

Same sea, same dangers waiting for him

As though he had got nowhere but older.

Behind him on the receding shore

The identical reproaches, and somewhere

Out before him, the unraveling patience

He was wedded to.  There were the islands

Each with its woman and twining welcome

To be navigated, and one to call ``home.''

The knowledge of all that he betrayed

Grew till it was the same whether he stayed

Or went.  Therefore he went.  And what wonder

If sometimes he could not remember

Which was the one who wished on his departure

Perils that he could never sail through,

And which, improbable, remote, and true,

Was the one he kept sailing home to?

Same

Author's Note- I was just thinking about how life doesn't ever seem to change, but then you realize everything has changed but it is all still the same, so I decided to write about it. It is more of a journal entry in a way, but here it is.

How come we always want something else that we don’t have? Once we finally realize we have something amazing its gone, it disappears and you can’t always get back, or find it again. Even if it might still be in our reach we miss it, we miss what it could be, we miss what it was, while knowing we messed up and just stopped.

We always look to have control in our life, to control our lives from day to day. Once we have control we realize that we really aren't living life anymore, we are living control. Some days we don't want anything to change from the day before, and say that we will figure it out that new day but we don’t. Each day that we live independently, in our own selves, a new opportunity or a new adventure to explore presents itself.

As we live the same day over and over nothing changes and everything wears down. There is no new story to tell tomorrow, just the same story from a day ago, a week ago, a month ago.  As over time it changes. Into something new that never really happened. Over time we create new ideas to believe, to make it seem ok and tell ourselves we will go back to where we were in yesterday or to somewhere better tomorrow, but not now. We can still create tomorrow, but only based on what we had yesterday and what we have today.

My City

Author's Note- In class we did a journal entry, it was a Stream of Consciousness, and the word was "City." When I first think of a city, I think of a place like Chicago, at night. I think of how it is always living and something is always happening. This would be where the poem would take place. I didn't mean for it to go darker at the end, but that's where it went. Also, we are reading Fahrenheit 451 right now, and I think this poem could connect to the book in different ways. Please leave your opinion on how it sounded as it got darker, and if I should have kept it happier, and lighter or if the way it went  was ok.

Walking through the streets,
Set in a perfect grid.
Everything moving around,
Buzzing through the town.

Looking up to the sky,
The lights of life shining down bright.
Upon me

Rushing to get from here to there,
Not yet knowing
Where there is,
But just wanting to get there.

Whistle down a taxi.
As you wave goodbye,
For now, to a friend,
Knowing you will see them again.

Running out into the heart
Of my city
Weaving through the craziness, the life

The siren sounds,
Lights flashing,
Everything goes out.

The lights of life from above,
Burnt out, turning off.
My lights
Apparently, this is that “there”,
Where I wanted to be.

This isn't where I wanted to be,
At all.
Cemented down into the road,
Stiff and cold, unable to move

Strangers trying to help me,
To save me.
They don’t know what help I need.
How would they?

They don’t know what on me hurts,
They didn’t ask,
As I can’t answer

They think it’s my head, but it’s really my heart.
I’m failing, breaking off, from me.
Is that even possible? To drown inside of myself

Now in this white room,
New lights from above,
Peering down,
Supposedly to wake me up back to life.

But not my life,
My shining lights
Are from the my city,
Where I live, not from this ceiling,

These are lights of someone else's life.
I need my lights
From my city,
To wake me back up.

Until I see my lights,
I’ll stay resting here
In nothingness, in darkness

Never wandering through my streets again,
Never saying hello to that friend I said goodbye to for now,
Never looking up at the sky scrapers of life, reaching to the sky,
But now looking down upon this all.

All The World's A Stage

paper and words in good font, originally uploaded by em.pirates.

By. William Shakespeare
Act 2, Scene 7
Written in 1599


 Click on the poem, and it will enlarge. Put your cursor over different parts on the page and different notes will come up.

Remembering Her

Author's Note: Last night my family and I were watching videos from when we were younger. It was so funny to see what I was like from different eyes. Different parts made me remember the real thing, like some toy that I loved. It was really refreshing, I guess you could say, and this is what I reflected on from it.

Bringing back old times,  trying to go there, and remember. Watching yourself on the screen, a person you don’t know anymore. Someone so remarkable. You want to be them again, but all you can do is laugh at how wonderful they were. A faint silhouette is still there, but a different light is now shining. The person on the screen or in the pictures, seems so much better, stronger. They laugh and jump and dance. Running around in circles, till you don’t see them. They fell down from dizziness, the dizziness of the joy of their life. They pop back up, start spinning again, never to stop. Saying the funniest things. Doing the funniest actions. 

I wish... 

I was her again.

Animal Farm Music Video!

We decided to take some songs, and make a parody to them, to match the book, Animal Farm. First we wrote the new lyrics, to the songs. The songs we chose were Alejandro, Fresh Prince of Bel Aire, Get Silly, Dont Stop Believing, Nothing On You and Shots. When we were recording we had a lot of fun with it, so it might sound a little bit "different." We used audacity, and recorded each one separately, and then combined them together as a mash-up. Next we recorded the actual music video. We used the flip videos to accomplish this, and then downloaded it to a file. We had some problems with movie maker so we finally figured it out using Motionbox. We were different animals, or farmers throughout. Hope you enjoy!


By: My Group, Katelyn, Allison, Natalie, and ME (Erin)

The Lyrics!

Alejandro

I know that we are dumb
And I know that we are just animals
But I just can’t deal with them anymore,
HUMANS

FRESH PRINCE

Now this is a story all about how,
Animalism got flipped upside down.
And I’d like to take a minute just sit right there,
I’ll tell you how Napoleon made Manor Farm unfair
IN the old Manor Farm born and raised
Working hard for Jones is how they spent there days
Pulling those cart, working all day
Complaing bout Jones’s evil ways
When the fat old pig had an idea
Started talking ‘bout chasing those humans away
He told all the animals, they got happy,
They said lets get rid of these humans and be free to go wacky!

GET SILLY!

Jones didn’t feed ‘em,
Da cows got mad!
They started to attack,
Da other animals joined,
And they kicked them out with their bags!
Da Rebellion! X8
Da pigs took over
They did very well
No one missed Jones
And they all ate well
They worked in da fields
And they worked very hard
But Snowball had an idea
But Napoleon didn’t like
So there was a Brouhaha
And Napoleons dogs attacked
Snowball disappeared
Now everything will be bad!

DON’T STOP BELIEVING

just a small town farm
working hard for all their rights
the pigs ordered them to build
whi-hi-mildddd
they followed all the rules
do what the pigs tell them to do
even if it would
ki-hilllll themmmmm
suspicious changing the rules
but what else can they do
for they are all scared of what might happen in the night

Nothin’ on You

Beautiful pigs
All over the farm
I could be fighting but my life would be taken
But we got nothing on napoleon
Nothing on napoleon
They might say oink
I might say he-haw!
Walk on two legs and I walk on four
Cuz they are better than us
Soooooo much better than us!

Shots

Get worked done!
If u arent hungry cows and horses
Get ready to get fed up!
Lets do it!
Oink oink!
Napolean
Uk it squealer
All of the animals
Moo neigh quack
When I walk in the barn all eyes on me
I make em’ work till they fall
Nothing is free
I make him write
All kinds of rules
Cuz we love to walk
On only to legs
Work x16
ANIMALLLS!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

This is just a cool quote about birthdays! It made me laugh! =)

Birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that the people who have the most live the longest.

–Larry Lorenzoni-



Author's Note: Its my moms birthday, so I wrote this about birthdays, and moms.


Happy Birthday

Have you noticed

You get all attention
       love
On your birthday

Your birthday
You’re the main character


We never remember
To show the correct thanks
          Honor
Throughout the year

Before-after
You’re a side character

A birthday is an annual reminder
To honor your life
A major part in mine


Your support
Your attention
Your time
Without,
we wouldn’t have


Have you noticed
We wouldn’t get places
         Stuck
Going nowhere

Your birthday
We are happy to be stuck


We never remember
We signed up for your team
        First
Before all else


Practice-game
Coaching us through
Every game you set it, I’m the champion
To let me shine high
When you’re the real hero

You start it
You set it up
You get it going
so it,
plays out for me


The love, attention
I always get
Bounces back, for you
For you to be in
The spotlight
That you should always be in

Eyelashes

Author's Note: My friend told me to write about eyelashes, and this is what I came up with. It seems to have a lot more feeling and is deeper than I expected, but I hope it gives you somehting to think about.

Black or brown
Framing your eye when,
Looking into the world.

Closing the final space
When looking into yourself.

All together, in a row

Curling around, at the tips

Protecting

Your final barrier between.

Always there

Always seen

But not noticed

Sometimes covered over

To seem bolder, deeper

The fakeness running down your face

To go back, and are left with

The plain beginning you

A lash falls, let’s go, breaks off
Resting on your cheek
Again unnoticed by you

A friend picks it up,
Lets you blow it away
As a wish
Hoping to come true

Stones With Words

Author's Note-  I started with a way longer journal response, but I shortened it down to this. At the beginning it was more of a list of things that relate to stones. Stones or writing on stones can have a lot of meaning behind it, like that it cant be erased, except for over time, when it is forgotten.

I Am Turtle

Author's Note: It was a response to The Bean Trees. It wasn't an essay so I thought it deserved to be on the main blog, instead of with the other essay responses. The little girl, Turtle, seemed like such a basic idea, that anyone can relate to.  If you look at anything at different ways, you can get a lot of it from it, was one of the main ideas I wanted to say.

My first word was bean,
Maybe to mean

I am a seed,

And I need your help to grow

I need your light, your soil, your warmth.

I am like a shadow in the desert

Nothing to hide me,
Nothing to protect me,
There’s life unfolding all around me
Everything is amber and dry,
Filled with hate

Still the cactuses grow
Covered in thorns
A hint of green,
In the sea of brown
You cant expect something
pretty, to grow here,
From a cracked base like this.
But sometimes

Sometimes…
A flower will find the will
To grow on top of the thorns
To grow on top of the hate
To cover it up
To try to pretend the whole plant is beautiful

Sometimes…
A flower will find the will
To keep living, even though
It only opens just once
To flourish for its moment then
It leaves us again

I realized that I had come to my own terms with the desert, but, my soul was thirsty.

My full name is April Turtle Greer

April to mean
In spring,
In hope,
As a seed, my time to blossom into a tree

Turtle to mean
I am my own animal,
I can hide.
If I go into my shell,
Ill have to come back out eventually

Greer to mean
I am officially someone,
I belong to something,
I finally matter again.

My second word was Humbean
Maybe to mean
I am not yet,
The something I want to be.
I am part hum and part bean, and together it makes me

Maybe everything is more coherent
Maybe I can be more than one thing
Maybe Ma is my new soil, my new light, my new warmth.

MY Goals!

Author's Note: To show what I need to work on, to remind myself what I am working towards. Thats what I have goals for.

LEAVES!

Author's Note: I was remembering back to when I was little, and when we could spend hours just jumping in leaves, and how pretty everything is. I feel like we always forget.

Writing Is...

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn Project

Author's Note: My group and I tried to make a tree, for a project from the book A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. This is just what it looked like, and how we made it. We made a tree out of cardboard boxes. We drew the cube design on the boxes and then cut it out and taped it together. After that we painted the boxes green jeweled them to make it sparkle and look cool! (sparkle for hope I guess) Also we put a yellow star wrapped in string on top to represent hope and you CAN get there. Then on the 3rd level of boxes we put a whole bunch of important quotes, to tie the whole book together. Its a Christmas Tree so it has a tree skirt. On our tree skirt we drew/painted pics or scenes on it. We also got some help from Morgan Patterson, Elli Ramlow, and Alyssa Meka!

A Tree Grows In Brooklyn Project-By: katelyn, allison, natalie, erin

QUOTE!

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." Leo Tolstoy