Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Jeremy the Wizard


            Author’s note: This is a short story that inspired me from my friend Jeremy. I also did get his approval of making this story with him in it, but he might experience doubt and misery.

            In the land of heroes and villains, this world had different heroes with different talents. We would say their name and their talent. Jeremy’s talent was a wizard. He was very amazing. He took armies down by his bare hands, and he can do almost anything with his staff. He only had one weakness that his enemies could not accomplish. Jeremy was the best hero there was. It was almost like Jeremy the wizard was perfect, too perfect. That was until things started to go wrong.

            “Jeremy the wizard, you have helped us in so many ways. You saved our city, brought us peace, and brought us powerful items. Since you helped us so many ways we are rewarding you by naming you after our town,” the king said. Everyone at the town meeting clapped widely. I was a little confused. Why didn’t he offer a giant army, or money? What maybe having an invitation on being king. I’ve helped this town so much. Stop it. I can’t be selfish. “Thank you,” I gladly said, “That is an excellent gift. I really don’t need anything.”

            Later that night the thought still kept on popping into my head. Why not this? How come I got that? I figured I was just acting strange I thought. When I was having a nightmare, I remembered what happen when I destroyed my last opponent. He told me, “Everyone has a fatal flaw, and yours is power. No matter how hard you try, you will turn to the dark side.” After that I had was dreaming about being king with servants everywhere serving me. When I woke up I told myself that it was only a dream.

5 months later

            “Everyone!” the king shouted, “I just been informed that our enemy is coming to attack us but don’t panic. We have Jeremy the wizard on our side and all of our army is prepared. We want all of you though to stay in your basements until you are informed by us to come out.”

            As I’m in the blistering battlefield summoning my spells, I’m angry. Why should I be fighting with the people who don’t reward me? This is unfair. As I was getting angry I realized that the enemy was dying of my spells. I don’t know who I am anymore. As our army took prisoners I went back inside the castle to talk to the king.

            “Excuse me my lord but am I not doing enough to get more power? I mean by now I thought I should’ve taken your spot.” I said madly.

            “Excuse me?” asked the king, “What on Earth are you talking about?”

            “Sorry. I’m losing control of myself.”  I said.
            When I was guarding the jail cell one of the prisoners asked me something, “Do you really want to do this?”

            “What do you mean?” I asked
           
            “Well for one thing you have so much power that you shouldn’t be wasting your potential working under a king.” The man said. “You could be king of the whole entire world.”

            “What is your name sir?”

            “My name is Sam the enchanter.” Sam replied.

            “I’m thinking you might be right. Why should I be here? I could be my own king. I could be free of doing orders from people.” I said.

            “Well maybe you should. We could be partners. You could be king by dominating our enemies while I convince people to join us.” He said

            At first this sounded convincing. Me? I could be ruler of the world. I could have people bowing down to me and do whatever I say. I could have power. Yes this did sound good. I would be the most powerful person on the planet. Finally I could get some respect.

            “Wait a minute. What skill do you have again?” I asked.

            “Why would that matter to you my friend?” he asked.

            “Yes never mind that doesn’t matter. You’re right we should be partners. We could split half the world and be rulers.”

            “Then let’s go now and get the villagers to join our army and start our war for Earth.”

            “Yes! Let’s go!” I said.
           
            As I was unlocking the cage though, the man was smiling as if he had already won.


To be continued…


Friday, March 16, 2012

Donald to Claudia


Author’s note: This poem is a parody from “Mother to Son”, by Langston Hughes, about explaining the same tone.

Now Claudia, you must learn this,

Always be the best because,

Life for me hasn’t been fame and glory,

I’ve took so much pain,

Since of my horrible school days,

I’ve lost and pout,

And been a giant loser,

Sometimes I even thought I was nobody,

But I didn’t give up,

I kept trying and trying and eventually,

 I became somebody,

So if you feel like nobody,

Never give up,

Because there’s always hope.


           Donald Zinkoff is the speaker of my parody, and the audience is Claudia.This parody relates to the story because Donald Zinkoff always lost. He always got made fun of by bullies. Now he is talking to Claudia, who is a little kid, to tell her to be awesome and not a loser like him. Finally the tone is perseverance, and the mood is sad.


Wednesday, March 14, 2012

The Thoughtful Piece


          Author’s note: For “Mother to son”, by Langston Hughes, I’m going to identify the word choice and context.

            In “Mother to Son”, the piece has a lot of figurative language in it. One of the metaphors in the piece is “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.” Also another metaphor is “It's had tacks in it”. Finally a third metaphor is “And sometimes goin' in the dark”. These metaphors over all mean about life and they help you think more about the character.

            The meaning of these quotes is to help describe the character more. If you were to describe someone about life, you could tell them that you had a bad life. Instead of that, you also could do something like Langston Hughes did and write a whole entire poem! 

            Also the tone is despair. It is despair the main character wants to tell her son that you would be very sad if you messed up your life. Also you would regret everything you did. The mood for this piece is feeling sad about the character. You start to feel sad for the character because you really want to help this character. Finally, you really wish this character didn’t feel so sad.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

The Similar Characters and Theme


            Author’s note: This is about stating one theme in The Angel Experiment, by James Patterson, about which is family troubles. This is also about comparing with the character Percy in The Last Olympian, by Rick Riordan.

            Have you ever found a theme that had multiple situations? That theme was family troubles in The Angel Experiment, by James Patterson. The main character’s story, Max, has a main theme which is family troubles. One of the troubles was her sister getting stolen. Another one of her troubles was all of her family was relying on her. Also the book The Last Olympian, by Rick Riordan, has family troubles too. Both of these books have family troubles.

            The first situation of the theme is when Max’s sister gets stolen. That makes Max’s family gets troubles because everyone is freaking out and Max can’t seem to do anything. In fact, Max was so scared she herself was freaking out on page 24. Also, when the sister got stolen Max’s family started blaming everyone for losing her. This trouble was really a big impact and almost made the family fall apart. That’s how this situation tied in the family problems.  

            The second situation was when Max’s sister got stolen; everybody was relying on her to figure out what to do. After that, everybody was going crazy because Max didn’t know what to do. Eventually everyone was auguring so Max went away to think. There was family trouble because the family was falling apart. One of Max’s siblings asked “Max what are we going to do?” in chapter 8. Max fixed that problem though by figuring out a plan.

            Max’s theme drove her family crazy, and Percy had the same theme. When Percy was young, his father went away and never came back. Eventually his mom got a new boyfriend over the years. Percy’s family was already having troubles because of his dad. On Percy’s 16th birthday his real dad came and rang the doorbell while Percy’s mom boyfriend was here. That made Percy’s family have a lot more troubles after that. Percy and Max compare completely.

            It is obvious that Percy and Max have the same theme. The interesting part about these characters is that their family problems both eventually clear up. When Percy had his troubles, his real dad explained on why he showed up and everyone was alright. Also, Max finds her sister so her problems clear up too. These two books have the exact same theme.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

The Never Ending and Horrible Game


             Author’s note: This is a word choice and content piece for an epilogue about Loser by Jerry Spinelli. The point of view is in Donald Zinkoff, the main character.

            “Zinkoff,” a team captain shouted. When I heard my name get called, the excitement inside me couldn’t wait to escape. I’ve been picked. I’ve actually been picked. I knew this day couldn’t get any better as if nothing could make my day bad. My entire soul was so excited I could do 10,000 jumping jacks. The only bad part is that we are playing football. My defense skills are the exact opposite of someone like Troy Polamalu. I wonder what I’m going to play. Right now my mind is a three year old's, excited and asking questions.

            “Alright everybody,” Gary, a student, screamed, “Let’s play”. As the first kickoff came with everybody’s heads staring straight up, the ball was coming in my direction. I’m finally got to play. As I caught the ball I was filled with confusion. Where should I run? I never actually got to play, so I didn’t know what to do. With everybody screaming at me, I figured I should just run. When I was running towards the never ending field, nobody was tackling me. Wow I must be pretty good. The touchdown lines passed me when I got to the end of the field. I scored! “Alright, way to go Donald,” I told myself. My teammates were rushing towards me. At first I was so excited, but my teammates looked way different than being happy. Uh oh, this can’t be too good. “You really don’t understand this sport,” the team captain said with raging fists, “You just scored for the other team”!

            Okay, so maybe I didn’t have a pleasant beginning, but that doesn’t mean I could save the game like a super hero saving the day. All I have to do is just make an outstanding, winning catch like the ones people do at a super bowl game. Also I could try to act like Troy Polamalu and do an awesome defensive interception. Although the game seemed like it was never ending, my team managed to only be down by three points. Time was running out and we had the ball. This is it. This is when I make the amazing, winning super bowl catch. When the ball swirled into the quarter back’s hands time seemed to go in slow motion. I was sprinting so fast it seemed like I was the wind. As the ball flew through the air, it was coming straight at me. The ball was descending in the air and I had to catch the ball. I lunged forward for the game, winning catch. Just before the catch the sun seemed to shine brighter. This is it. This is when I show everyone I’m good enough. The ball touches my fingers and I dropped it.

            Thanks to me, we lost the game. Everyone was seems to be using me as a scapegoat. “Why did you have to drop the pass,” someone would ask, or “Why did you have to play anyways.” The worst quote of all is something I would never forget. It’s true because if it weren’t for me, my team wouldn’t have lost. Then when I got to bed, the quote kept on haunting me. “You just scored for the other team!”

Monday, March 5, 2012

Character:Donald Zinkoff

     Donald is a boy who apparently loses all the time at everything. He has brown hair, and he has blue eyes. Under his ear, he has a birthmark. He doesn't really has a specific age because in the book he ages from first grade to sixth grade. He also has a lot of pride and ego.

     Donald has one friend who is Hector. Hector eventually stopped being his friend. So Donald didn't have any friends and then he felt sad. When Donald realized nobody liked him, he thought he was nobody. Then he did something that made him noticeable. 

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Peter's Point of View




            Author’s note: In the book Touching Spirit Bear, by Ben Mikaelsen, there is a kid named Peter who has problems because he got beat up. In the book, Peter thought nobody cared about him so he tried to commit suicide. Then he had to go to an abandoned island, with the kid he got beat up by, to try and think about his life. I thought it would be interesting if I wrote in Peter’s point of view on the day he got to the island. I'm predicting about what is going to happen in Peter's point of view and then why. The purpose is to show that a story can be completely different.

Afternoon

            “I don’t want to go dad,” I screamed, “He’ll just beat me until I can’t move.”

            “I know you don’t want to go son,” his dad exclaimed, “But I just don’t want you to hurt yourself anymore.”

            “I don’t care about my life! Nobody does. If you cared……… you wouldn’t……. let Cole hurt me………. anymore,” Peter said with his speech problems starting again.

            My dad just started to ignore me again. Why doesn’t anybody care about me? I thought. If people cared, Cole would be thrown in jail the minute I got punched by Cole. When we got to the island, Cole said hi to me but I just walked away. He’s just trying to act nice because the policeman, Garvey, is here. Well I don’t care about him anyways.

            As we got closer to the island, I could feel my eyes starting to water. Nobody stood up for me when Cole attacks me. Nobody cared. I’ll show Cole. I’ll just ignore him and pretend he’s nothing. He’ll feel worthless like I did. I’ll show him.

2 days later

            As I started to live on this island, I realized Cole actually was trying to be nice. I figured since he got mauled by a bear, he realized how it feels to get bullied for no good reason. I was trying to be nice to him too. I even let him sleep with us in the warm cabin. As the week passed, I realized that Cole wasn’t trying to hurt me. He realizes what he did to me and he was sorry. I became friends with him too.

Last day with Cole

            “Let’s go up to the pond and swim,” Cole had said.

            “Okay,” I said. I figured it would be cool.

            As we went up to the pond, Cole had asked for forgiveness. I forgave him and when I did, we saw the spirit bear.  

            This is what I predicted because Peter was hopeless. He has slurred speech every now and then. The book even has an event when he was slurring his speech on page 126. I predicted that Peter didn't care about his life because he tried to commit suicide in chapter 28. Finally I predicted his parents were desperate because Peter tried to commit suicide.