Best of Week: Cathedral

It's hard to choose a specific "Best of Week" moment for this week because we had a couple days of very valuable discussion about Cathedral. My classmates came up with some great ideas about the last line of the story, and also about the transition from short, blunt sentences to more elaborate description and back to short sentences. It's a great learning experience to make note of these writing techniques. It gives me ideas about how to write my short story, though I'm not sure I'll be able to have quite the effect Raymond Carver had. Still, though, it's very helpful for me to have an idea of what I should be aiming for when I write my short story. I have learned that actions speak louder than words in short fiction; it's better to show an emotion than to just say it. I hope that as we talk about more short stories, I will be able to notice some of these writing techniques and I will get better at effectively applying them to my own writing. It's really amazing to read works of such amazing authors; I can't tell if they were born good writers or if it takes practice. Probably a little bit of both... though I hope for my sake it's more of the latter. I'm looking forward to more great discussion this week!

What If: My Life in a Short Story

What if I was given an assignment to portray my life thus far in a short story? How would I do it? What details would I include? I might use specific examples of different times in my life to portray that era of my existence. I might use straightforward summary, simply describing the course of my life. As demonstrated in the short story Boys, though, I think the former would be a more effective option. It was remarkable how powerful it was to get snippets of the universal boys' lives; it was very effective in communicating the essence of the day-to-day happenings. So, what would I include? I think it would be pertinent to talk about going to my friend Colin's house to eat my peanut butter and jelly sandwich out of the teal lunch box nearly every day after preschool. My sister would be frustrated with me; it was HER lunch box. I would speak of sitting in a circle on the carpet during Kindergarten, singing and talking with Mrs. Dandino. I would recall the moment when my parents told my sister and me we were leaving Skokie, how I was excited and Sarah was bawling. I ran to make a hand-crafted "For Sale" and stuck it in the front lawn. I would include the day I got the tour of Wescott from Meghan and Sabrina, my first friends in Northbrook. It was crazy hat day. I would talk about the countless days through the year I would bike just down the street to Meghan's house, to play games we made up in her basement or play outside in the back yard. Summer after summer, winter after winter. What else? Sundays at Northbrook Theatre, learning dances and music, all leading up to the weekend performance days I hotly anticipated. The Halloween I spent trick-or-treating with Josh and Meghan in 3rd grade, when Josh knocked over the lamp post by accident. The recesses at Wescott spent playing wall-ball and four square. The day of registration at Maple, when we first got our lockers and learned how to use the locks. My group of friends, the "Happy Circle"- we were grossly exclusive and spent one memorable evening watching Monty Python and rolling down a hill. The days as president in 8th grade, giving speeches at assemblies, and finally giving our graduation speech on the stage at GBS. The graduation dance, where everybody was crying uncontrollably, speaking of how we would miss the southies so much, even though they would still be living just minutes away. The night before I started high school, eating at Kamehachi with Jenna and Sydney. The first day of school at Academy, how excited we all were to be meeting each other, and how nervous we were for what was to come. The joy of swim season and the pride I felt standing on the block winning an event at JV conference. The exhilaration of water polo and all the energy I expended. The constant nervousness for varsity swimming which turned into true love for the team and the season. All the night spent online talking with friends, but mostly classmates, complaining about homework and frantically preparing for tests.

These are the moments I would include. It's weird to think that this has only been 15 years of my life, that I could live to be 80... or 90... what a thought.

Connection: Almost everybody/Mr. Kurtz and Dumbledore/Grindelwald

Please don't eat me for making a Harry Potter connection! I couldn't help but notice similarities between Mr. Kurtz in HoD and Grindelwald in Harry Potter. Grindelwald was anti- Muggle and was planning a plot to have wizard domination over Muggles. Dumbledore was captivated by Grindlewald and joined him in his quest for wizard domination. On the surface, the pair made their plot seem okay by saying all progress would be for "the greater good," while in reality what they were doing was domineering and evil. In Heart of Darkness, Mr. Kurtz had a captivating quality over not just one person, but many, particularly the Harlequin. In his text, he said "we whites 'must necessarily appear to them [savages] in the nature of supernatural beings- we approach them with the might as of a deity.'" He said "'by the simple exercise of our will we can exert a power for good practically unbounded.'" In the margin, however ,the words "Exterminate all the brutes" were written. This is very similar to Grindelwald, who got Dumbledore to believe they were doing good, when reality he was all for the extermination of Muggles. Both Kurtz and Grindelwald had power, and people were attracted to it. Both examples show how people's views of what is right can be skewed by the unquenchable thirst for power.