Without courage then we would be nothing

     It was a day I dreamed that would never happen. I was terrified, I couldn't sleep. I would constantly roll around in my bed in a sleepless daze. I was 6 years old. I had to go to a sailing camp. I was terrified about all of the things that could happen. But unfortunately, as the minutes turned into hours the morning slowly crept forward.

    Overcoming fear while being calm

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do."

~Eleanor Roosevelt~

    It was a day every parent yearns to never have to face. When my parents found out, they started to freak out. They had just learned that I had injured my head. My parents immediately got up to try and find me. I got up dazed, I staggered around for a second. Immediately finding my bearings, we were up in New Hampshire, we were on a golf course, and we were at the Bald Peak Club with my grandparents, and I was playing with some family friends. When I looked up at my brother and my friends, I could see a face of utter disgust coming over their faces. I had blood dripping down my forehead. I remember one of our friends running to meet my parents. Then my parents ran over to me asking, “Are you okay”, “What happened”.

Safety

“A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself”

~Joseph Campbell

A house is being robbed, a worried parent hurry’s to the phone and calls the police. A dispatcher picks up the phone. The dispatcher says that they will send a police officer in the next 30 minutes. A now very worried parent asks why. Recently police departments funds have been slashed. This has created an increase in response time, less officers available, and more crime.

Stopping By The Woods On a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.   
His house is in the village though;   
He will not see me stopping here   
To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   
To stop without a farmhouse near   
Between the woods and frozen lake   
The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   
To ask if there is some mistake.   
The only other sound’s the sweep   
Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   
But I have promises to keep,   
And miles to go before I sleep,   
And miles to go before I sleep.

By Robert Frost

Literary Analysis:

Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening

“I have never found a companion as companionable as solitude” 

-Henry David Thoreau-

Everybody in life will experience isolation. In the book, the author portrays the character as being isolated as he travels. In the Poem Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening, The character is isolated as he stops while traveling somewhere (His destination is never actually expressed in the poem). This poem is about someone who is traveling through an area while it is snowing outside, and there is snow on the ground. He stops and comments about how his horse must think it is weird to stop without a farmhouse. Through the poem, the character describes his surroundings. In the poem, he also describes how isolated he was while stopping. An example from the text when the character talks about isolation is “The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep” This quote portrays the isolation that the character from the story has been subjected from. This quote also gives you a feeling of isolation, by the way in which Robert Frost described it as lovely, dark, and deep. Even though there is a nod to isolation throughout the entirety of the poem, I think this quote really shines in describing it. In the quote he talks about how the woods are dark and deep, this must mean that he is surrounded by trees for miles, and that he is alone (beside his horse) and isolated. In life Isolation can sometimes be welcomed and unwelcomed. But whatever type it is, everybody will experience it.

~Thomas Livens

Reflection:

The reason that I decided to do this poem is because I originally did this poem for WW Fenn in 6th Grade. When I memorized this piece, I remembered loving this poem. I think I love memorizing it because I believe that Robert Frost did a great job describing the environment and surroundings. I think he also does a great job of painting a picture in your head of the scene. With the lines like “Between the woods and frozen lake” and “Of easy wind and downy flake” it paints a scene of quiet serenity, while also a dreary picture at the same time. Robert Frost also did an amazing job conveying the solitude of this poem, how the character is alone in the woods with his horse, with snow falling. I also think that this poem is really fun to perform, because it has a small amount of rhyming, while it is not completely full of rhymes. The poem also feels like it has a natural flow to it. Overall I am excited to be able to memorize this poem because I really enjoy reading it.

Post Performing:

I enjoyed performing the poem, however I should have gone WAY slower. I wasn’t really paying attention to the speed that I was talking, I probably should have payed attention more. Overall, I think that I did a good job with my diction and memorization. I am happy that WW Fenn is over and that I do not have to memorize any more poems.

My Eventful Exam Experience

    This Exam experience for me, has been a long and winding road of studying and taking the Exams. I have studied a lot for the exams, especially the Math and Global one’s. Taking the actual tests, took a long time to complete. The prep for the Exams was pretty tedious, we had a lot of prep we had to do, combined with writing the essays, doing work on the review packets and studying for math. It took a lot of time, but the English was manageable because we wrote the literary analysis in groups, so that made it easier related to the workload. Overall, I think that I did an okay job on my exams. The Latin exam was quite challenging for me, while I enjoyed doing the Science exam, the Math exam, the Global exam, and the English exam. I think that I did a good job studying for the exams, I took time out of my week to divide up to studying different topics and subjects. I also think that I did a good job balancing all of the stuff that I had to do for English. Like the two essays and the comma rules sheet we had to fill out for exam prep. One thing that I wish I did was start studying the week before, and even before that; because I could do a few pages of studying each night, and not have to study as much right before the test. Overall, I am pretty happy with how I studied, and how I took the tests.

Thomas, Jack, and Pete

Fitz English

Midyear Exam

12/17/2021

The Old Man and The Sea, a story of Isolationism and solitude 

“The worst cruelty that can be inflicted on a human being is isolation.”

~Sukarno

    Isolation forces you to find out what you value most. The Old Man And the Sea by Ernest Hemingway demonstrates how isolation affects The Old Man while wrangling the giant fish. The Old Man has caught no fish for eighty-seven days and for a long time the old man had a young boy with him as an apprentice, but because of the old man’s luck the young boy’s parents made the boy leave and go to another boat. That young boy was the only constant contact the old man had with people while fishing. But when the boy left to go to another boat, a dark wave of isolationism overwhelmed the old man.

The Power of Organization 

"It's not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?" 

~Henry David Thoreau

    Even the most unstructured things can have benefits. When we started to read The Old Man and the Sea, I had to develop a schedule to read the book; so, I wouldn’t be behind on activities in English. Reading the Old Man and The Sea, we were not assigned a timeline to read the book. Because of this, I had to balance school work with my extracurricular activities and reading the book for English. Because of this, I was forced to create a schedule for myself, over time chipping away at the book I would read a few pages. When I came to class the day Fitz announced that we were reading the book, I was thinking about what assignment he was going to assign. A Microworx? Another book? Another essay? But it turned out it was going to be another book to read. When we asked Fitz when the reading was due, he said there was not a due date, and that we would just have to read a little bit every night. Usually, in the past when I have read a book for school, we had a reading goal to accomplish, every night, or every couple of nights, we would be assigned pages to read. I realized that I needed to make a schedule for myself, because If I didn’t read a few pages a night, then I would fall behind in the book. Reading the Old Man and The Sea, challenged me to create a goal and try to achieve that goal by reading a few pages a night. I learned from this experience that in life, there are many times when you will not have a schedule, and you will have to create your own plan and goal, and work to achieve that goal. Being timely while reading the book was not always easy. Sometimes, I would try to read the book, but I would not be able to get to it because of school work. So I would have to read more pages the next day. Last Year, I would have been behind in reading, because we didn’t have a due date. But I would tell myself to wait to read the Old Man and The Sea, and you will cement your time management skills. These skills allowed me to read the book, and absorb all of the information, and not have to rush while reading the book.

Dear Admissions Committee,

    I haven’t seen a lot of the world; I am a fourteen year old boy living in Carlisle Massachusetts. But in my life so far, I have found that being kind, having courage, and being hard-working, will serve you well in making friends and having a happy life.

Power of Community

Community is an indispensable aspect of life

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. 

~John Donne

    Community is an indispensable aspect of life. A community is a group of people who always support you no matter what. Throughout the boring and tough times of Covid, our family friends have always been there for me and my family. Through COVID, I have always been supported by my friends. Having been able to go outside with my friends after school, had always made me feel better and happier during the pandemic. When I was at home, and online for school, I was usually always bored. But I was always able to look forward to the end of school, to be able to see my friends. After school, we would go out into the woods for hours on end, we would also bike for hours on end. I was in class and bored out of my mind. But I was looking forward to the end of school. At the end of school I met up with my friends. Almost every other day of quarantine, I would meet up with my friends to go for a bike ride, we would be out for more than a couple of hours. We biked all over from one side of town to the other going through secluded paths in the woods. When I was biking, I couldn’t help but think about how lucky I was to have my friends in my life. As I look back on that experience, I realize how lucky I am to have had family friends that I could rely on. Through all of the negatives in life like COVID and having to go online, I was always able to look forward to the positives of being with my friends. Through this period of time we created a small community, to which we could unwind and have fun. My friends are incredibly important to me. I have always valued the friendships I have and I will always be grateful for them. One lesson that I learned from this experience was that one of the important things in life, is to have a sense of belonging to a community who values you.

Hope & Poverty on "The Rez"

To live without hope is to cease to live


~Fyodor Dostoyevski

It is hard to escape poverty. Poverty can be with you throughout your life. But one of the best tools to rid yourself of poverty is hope. Hope is the glimmer of light in a dark room. In the book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexi, Junior (The narrator) is always profoundly affected by poverty. Hope saved Junior and help free him from the chains of poverty, and reading this book freed me from my ignorance and helped me see with clear eyes the effects of poverty on a young boy growing up on a reservation in Washington..