Great Gatsby Ch. 8-9

"It excited him too that many men had already loved Daisy-it increased her value in his eyes" (Pg.156).

Gatsby loves everything about Daisy, and pretty much anything thing that she owns seems more beautiful than if it were it's normal self. He thinks her house is the most radiant and that everything in side the house is just way more spectacular than anyone else's things, and that includes Daisy herself. It is almost as if Gatsby sees Daisy as this magnificent prize to have since she was the gateway to the "real money" world, so the fact that more guys are interested in her, she seems to be more significant in Gatsby's eyes because he feels as though he is winning just for having her.

(Words: 107)

"He stretched out his hand desperatley as if to snatch only a wisp of air, to save a fragment of the spot that she had made lovely for him. But it was all going by too fast now for his blurred eyes and he knew that he had lost that part of it, the freshest, and the best, forever" (Pg.160-161).

Gatsby starts to notice that time is running by so quickly and he feels as though he has just been taking advantage of it this whole time. He desperately snatched for the spot that Daisy has made lovely for him because he wants, so badly, for time to slow down for him to enjoy life. Everything is going unwell in every aspect and his self realization is that he has lost part of himself forever because , and that part of himself was the nicest part. He feels as though the best things are lost and is upset by the fact that even when he grabbed the spot Daisy mad for him, he only grabs air.

(Words: 114)

"I drove from the station directly to Gatsby's house and my rushing anxiously up the front steps was the first thing that alarmed anyone" (Pg.169).

As Wilson was freaking, out about Myrtle's death, he ran away and Nick went after him by following the trail that Wilson accidentally left behind, Wilson was on his way to Gatsby's house to finish what he believed to be what Gatsby had started. Nick followed to Gatsby's house where Wilson had just shot Gatsby and then himself. No one in Gatsby's giant house seemed to notice until Nick had come running up the stairs into the house with the look of panic upon his face. They all went to the back where the pool was and saw Gatsby, and Wilson dead. 

(Words: 102)

"After that I felt a certain shame for Gatsby-one gentleman to whom I telephoned implied that he had got what he deserved" (Pg.177).

Nick feels bad for Gatsby because he has been used most of his life by Daisy, when it comes to romance and taking the blame for killing Myrtle, and all of the people who would show up at Gatsby's parties. Nick called a lot of people, who would come to Gatsby's parties, to ask if they would like to come to his funeral and when one guy replied saying that he deserved to die, it just showed Nick how Gatsby's life wasn't all that great and once Nick realized how used Gatsby was, he felt the shame.

(Words: 97)

"And as I sat there, brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock" (Pg.188).

As Nick was pondering the scene he couldn't help but wonder what Gatsby was thinking when he picked out a green light for Daisy's dock. Gatsby had picked out the green light because the green stood for the money that separated them. He knew how important money and a title were to Daisy and he did not have money at the time and was never able to gain a title since he was not born rich, so the green light also stood for the love he was trying to get from her. 

(Words: 92)

Best In Class

          Imagine if you lost the chance of being Valedictorian by .00154 points: that would make you bitter. Or, what if you were one of the thousands of kids named Valedictorian? It would not be that special. There is no good solution to this because there will always be at least one person who is not satisfied with the results. The author of "The Annals of Education: Best in Class" attempts to show that the problem is not with the title of Class Valedictorian, it is the competition behind it. 


          When the rules to get Valedictorian were just getting the best grade point average and having the most credits a student figured it out and sneakily took easy courses to earn more credits, and won the coveted title. When others realized what happened, and parents found out, they sued the school in hopes that their kid could possibly receive the title, even though that would not even mean anything in a college where most of the students were top high school achievers. After the scandal was exposed, the students hated the kid that plotted his way to being class Valedictorian because they believed that somehow this strategy made him a cheater; even though it was actually a brilliant plan. If he was the only one smart enough to think of that, then he deserves the title of Valedictorian.


          Another problem behind the title of class Valedictorian is that so many people have complained about there being only one or two people to earn the top academic titles when others' grades are only thousandths of a point away from the title. To answer this complaint, some schools decide to give the title to all the kids with a G.P.A. of four or above, but then it does not mean anything to receive the title and makes the reward less of an honor. These schools'  attempt to make things fair has effected the awarded students' college experience when they compete with other college students, since it makes their title less meaningful as a mark of their intellect. 


          Everyone should look at the title of Valedictorian as an honor instead of some prize to fight for. "Cheryl Barker still marvels at how hard Kylie worked, how determined she was, how she never missed a day of school, how she’d go to the library all the time to use the computer because they didn't have one at home. Barker thinks that it was a mistake for the high school to stop naming a valedictorian and a salutatorian" (Talbot). A student who works hard, is very determined, never misses a day of school, and practically lives in the library is the kind of person that should be honored with the title of Valedictorian, and it's really sad that Kylie's mom, Cheryl, can't see the gift of her child without thinking that she should have to win some award. She should be proud that her daughter is a driven girl that has an incredible chance to be accepted at any college and just leave it at that. Whether or not Kylie has a title, her determination will surely help her succeed in college and later.


          Since it is not even going to matter, later in life, whether or not you were the Valedictorian, then students shouldn't fight so hard for the title, when it's their G.P.A. score that really matters. If someone earns the title, they should just be honored and if not, then they should shrug it off and move on. A difference of .00154 points shouldn't make anyone bitter when that amazing score still shows up on their G.P.A., and if a student is named one of the thousands of Valedictorians, then he or she should be honored that they earned that title.
(Words: 571, without quotes)

Great Gatsby Ch. 6-7

(1) "James Gatz- that  was really, or at least legally his name. He changed it at the age of seventeen..." (Pg.104).

Since the beginning Gatsby has been some what of a mysterious character. Not many people know much about his background. Nick is really hung-up on the mystery of the Great Gatsby, but now it seems as though Fitzgerald has pulled back on Nick's obsession, though not entirely. Nick is still hooked enough to wonder about Gatsby's name. He knows now that it is not Gatsby's real name and that Gatsby changed it when he was seventeen, which is quite peculiar and definitely helps keep up with the mysterious look of Mr. Gatsby.
(Words:92)

(2) "[Gatsby] knew when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited... Then he kissed her" (Pg.117).

Fitzgerald is showing how vulnerable Gatsby is letting himself be for Daisy. Here Gatsby is running the idea of kissing Daisy through his head, telling himself pretty much everything that would go wrong if he kissed her. He almost talks himself out of doing it by saying that if he kisses her he wont be able to be as free as being a bachelor allows him to be. So he has to debate whether or not he is going to follow his heart, or if he is going to not risk the chance of being vulnerable. But he did it which shows that he loves her enough to kiss her and not care how it effects his godhood.
(Words:118)

(3) "[Daisy] had told [Gatsby] that she loved him, and Tom Buchanan saw. He was astounded. His mouth opened a little and he looked at Gatsby and then back at Daisy as if he had just recognized her as someone he knew a long time ago" (Pg.125).

Fitzgerald is arguing what a hypocrite Tom is being. He is getting jealous of the love between Daisy and Gatsby, when he has been cheating on Daisy with a mistress for years. Tom is more freaked out at this point because he is just now witnessing this, and the way she tells Gatsby she loves him reminds him of something. That something was the way that she used to tell Tom that she loved him. This is a pretty big loss that Tom is seeing, and it all just hits him in a really bad spot, which makes him act bitter for the rest of the evening and effects the way he views Gatsby and Daisy, but mostly just Gatsby.
(Words:120)

(4) "'Your wife doesn't love you' said Gatsby quietly. 'She's never loved you. She loves me... She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me'" (Pg.137).

Fitzgerald is showing that Gatsby can really stand up for what he believes and that Daisy was using Tom just as he was using her. Tom cares for his mistress, but she is in the lower class, and he needs to be with with someone from his social class. On the other hand Daisy has always loved Gatsby, but he was poor and she didn't want to wait, so she settled with someone in her own class. Tom is the only one that comes out as the only hypocrite since he is the only one who gets jealous of the others' lover. Gatsby stands up to Tom and explains this whole "I love you" thing, and explains why Daisy married him in the first place,. All the while Gatsby isn't being very considerate to Tom's feelings because he thought that Tom would understand since he is doing the same thing.
(Words:150)

(5) "[Nick]'d be damned if [he]'d go in; [he]'d had enough of all of them for one day..." (Pg.150).

Fitzgerald is showing a side of Nick that we have never really witnessed before. We usually see Nick as being a very judgmental person, but we don't really see him get upset/annoyed, at least until now. After a long day of a love triangle gone wrong, and the horrible accident he just witnessed. Nick is feeling on edge because he realizes at the end of the day that it was his birthday. After that he doesn't even want to go into Buchanan's house because he expects it all to get worse and doesn't think that he can handle any more of the crazy that they are spewing out. We have finally seen Nick hit his limit.
(Words:117)

Commencement Speech

          The author is trying to persuade everyone to work on being themselves, and doing the things that make them happy, rather than doing what is required of them. This is an amazing article that could raise anyone's self confidence level by going into depth about why it is better to be proud of yourself.

          The concept of this blog applies to the majority of society from any given time period. After reading it I couldn't help but realize how relevant the whole thing is and then I saw that it was written in 1999. It is weird to realize that this has probably been going on since the being of mankind; then again it sounds right, since people have the need to please everyone around them even when it means not being true to themselves. When it comes to insecure people who are pleasing others in bad situations, not being true to themselves becomes a real issue.

          Self confidence is the best thing to get from this story because it explains how wonderful it is to be different or unique, how it's empowering to step out of this conformed path of life, and how you can be whomever you choose to be. This story encourages its reader to make up everything as they go along instead of having a path already set in stone. These are all sorts of ways to allow yourself to be happy. You could have the best job in the world and get paid millions of dollars, but if you're not happy with what you are doing then you shouldn't feel the need to stay in it just for the fear that people will call you crazy. The writer gives a great example of this when she talks about how she quit working at the New York Times newspaper to do what she really loved to do. That is a really hard concept to wrap your brain around because working for that paper is a really big deal, but since it didn't make her happy, it was not worth it.

          As she talks about being true to yourself and loving who you are for it, she ties it to the thinking of children, because who cares less about what anyone has to say about them than children? They are free to be themselves. Children's minds are way more open and creative because they are too uninformed and amazing to worry about how they are "supposed" to be around people, and they just do what makes them happy. She also explains that people tend to create a shell over themselves during the ages of ten to thirty because that is when the thought of how others see them kicks in and holds them back.

          People shouldn't just not care about how the world sees them because that could cause various problems, but if everyone was just a little less judgmental so that others wouldn't have to feel so concerned about being themselves, the world would be better as a result.
(Words: 502)

Great Gatsby Ch.4-5

(1) "And then came that disconcerting ride" (Pg. 69).


Here Fitzgerald attempts to persuade the audience to think that Nick isn't sure of how he feels about Gatsby. Although Nick has changed his mind about him after meeting Gatsby at the first party, he is feeling unsettled in this car ride when he has to tell Gatsby how he feels about him. First of all Nick is really surprised when Gatsby pulls up in his driveway saying that they are going to have lunch, and even though this makes Nick quite curious he just goes with it. This quote is Nick telling us ahead about how uncomfortable this ride makes him so that we will understand how he is feeling through out this ride.
(Words:115)


(2) "'Anything can happen now that we've slid over this bridge'... Even Gatsby could happen, without any particular wonder" (Pg. 73).

Here Fitzgerald is trying to persuade us that this maybe be a place of new sights to see and that this place could bring out the real Gatsby. Just as they go over this bridge Nick sees a whole bunch of stuff that he is not use to seeing where he is from. Nick experiences a sorrowful scene as they drive behind this car that is obviously going to the graveyard or a funeral and he sees a limousine being chauffeured by a white man catering to three African American men. All this is so odd to Nick that it makes him wonder  that if the people over this bridge create such a different atmosphere then what if it can create such a different characteristic to Gatsby.
(Words:127)

(3) "'Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay... He wants her to see his house... And your house is right next door'" (Pg. 83&84).

Here Fitzgerald is trying to persuade the audience to understand why Gatsby might be trying to become so close with Nick. All this time Nick has been surprised about everything Gatsby says and or does because it always seems to be sudden. Now Nick probably realized that Gatsby has probably had a lot of this planned out in order for him to get to have Daisy over next door. And in order for Gatsby to have Daisy over next door he needs to be friends with the next door neighbor which is Nick.
(Words:93)

(4) "For a minute there wasn't a sound... 'We haven't met for many years' said Daisy... 'Five years next November.' The automatic quality of Gatsby's answer set us all back at least another minute... Gatsby got himself into a shadow and while Daisy and I talked looked conscientiously from one to the other of us with tense unhappy eyes" (Pg. 91&92).

Here Fitzgerald is trying to persuade the audience of how uncomfortably awkward this tea party is. Gatsby is acting like a little boy with a childish crush on Daisy as he speaks quick and shy like. Nick is having to start all these conversations or events to clear the awkwardness in the room but when if he stops and no one comments it get really uncomfortable again. Gatsby even pulls Nick aside to talk to him and Nick reassures him that he and Daisy are just embarrassed. Gatsby understands and they go into the kitchen with Daisy, Nick leaves the room to let them talk and it still remain awkward and quiet with murmurs every now and then until Nick comes in the room and feels that all the embarrassment was gone.
(Words:132)

(5) "[Gatsby] had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted this way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart"
(Pg. 101).

Here Fitzgerald is trying to persuade the audience that Gatsby had been waiting for this for a very long time and wanted to make it as perfect as possible. This brought out a creative more beautiful characteristic of Gatsby. It kind of makes him seem like a sensitive guy who is really in love with this woman because he is trying so hard to make her like him.
(Words:68)

LET TEENAGERS TRY ADULTHOOD

     Leon Botstein's argument that teenagers around the age of sixteen are ready for adulthood is extremely logical and respectful to those of that age since, as said in the writing, they don't get respected for being that age very often. Botstein goes on to say that school should consist of elementary school and high school and that students should graduate when they're fifteen/sixteen because most fifteen and sixteen year olds have already set their goals in life and are ready to pursue them. He believes that they shouldn't be held back by wasting their time for schooling that they may no longer feel is necessary.


     Sixteen year olds in the twenty-first century are ready to go out in the real world and become adults and be respected like everyone else. "Adults... don't like adolescents... they have used high school to isolate the pubescent and hormonally active adolescent away from both the picture-book idealized innocence of childhood and the more accountable world of adulthood," which doesn't benefit any of them in the long run and really shows that "too much time has been wasted." 


     Botstein is right. Most Juniors could probably say that they already have senioritis with two years of high school left because they are ready for the world with their careers in mind and are being held against their will in these high schools that may or may not benefit them. This is similar to the situation of those who have reached puberty but are still being treated like children in middle school. Once a kid starts puberty, they should be treated like they're growing up. They could attend a highschool that would start at 7th grade and go to 10th grade, in which case they would be amongst a greater number of peers who share their maturity, instead of sharing a school with those who are not as advanced as they are. Our current system, based on age instead of maturity, causes students to stay in the same mind set that they had when they were still children, thus not letting them move on as fast as they should be able to. Making kids go through twelve years of schooling is almost an insult to their intelligence. Our system implies that students aren't smart enough for college because they're not eighteen, which is what our society considers an adult, even though kids are advancing much quicker than they used to. 


     Another good point that Botstein makes is that the school system also seems to think that everybody is going to have a job where they would need to have these twelve years of specific credits. The fact is that people are starting to follow their dreams more, which in a lot of cases require few to none of these credits. It is a system that was probably built for the greater good, but some of the time it's just a waste. If kids feel like our educational system is a waste of time, students will give up on their dreams or decide against college to avoid staying in the educational system for a longer amount of time. For many, they do not realize that "the rules of high school turn out not to be the rules of life" and give up on education too soon.
      More people need to start questioning this system like Botstein has, but on a larger scale, so that the government, school board, or who ever is in charge might starting thinking about making the necessary changes in order to benefit everybody, not just the majority. Decision makers need to realize that times have changed and that teenagers are way more advanced and should be treated like it.

Great Gatsby Ch.1-3

(1) "...my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over my mind ever since. 'Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone... just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.' In consequence I'm inclined to reserve all judgements.... [making] me the victim of not a few veteran bores" (Pg. 5).

Here the author attempts to show that as Nick was growing up his dad always tried to remind him that he shouldn't judge people because one doesn't know everyone's background story. Nick says that he lives reserving all his judgements of people to a point where he is the victim to various boring people. The only problem with this is that even though the author describes Nick as a non-judgmental man, he actually exposes him as someone who is the utmost hypocrite. When a new character comes in the first thing Nick does is judge every little aspect of them, and since they're a new character you know that he does not know their background stories.
(Words:116)

(2) "... a certain desolate area of land. This is the valley of ashes... where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens, where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and... men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air... the solemn dumping ground" (Pg. 27-28).

Here the author points out how hypocritical Nick is by the way he can look down at all the people in the whole valley of ashes. Nick uses a farm metaphor where ash can grow like wheat. He describes the buildings as if they're not even real buildings, but just images made by clouds of smokey ash. He describes these people to be grim and ghoul like, where they even move in an already crumbling manner. He basically describes them as the living dead, just spitting in the face of their dark and disgusting valley that might as well be a large dumping ground. If he  can condescend to a whole portion of society just by their location he proves himself to be quite judgmental.
(Words:125)

(3) "She smiled slowly and walk[ed] through her husband as if he were a ghost shook hands with Tom" (Pg. 30).

Here the author is trying to show how far some people will go in order to obtain money. The "she" in this quote is Myrtle Wilson. She is a poor woman married to a boring man who is having an affair with Tom. Whenever she sees Tom she gets excited because she knows she is about to have a lot more fun with him than she does with her boring husband and she is about to get to act like she has money, which she desperately wants. That's the reason that she would ignore her husband, walking though him to get to Tom more excitedly.
(Words:105)

(4) "There was music from my neighbor's house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whispers and the champagne and the stars" (Pg. 43).

Here the author is showing how low Nick thinks of those who party all the time. In the visual of this quote Nick is looking from above at the people arriving to Gatsby's party, so Nick is literally and metaphorically looking down upon these people. When he explains that there was music coming from his neighbor's house every night he was saying it in a way that makes him sound like he is annoyed of this music. The way he describes the people is by comparing them to moths attracted by "the light." This is kind of an insult to them because it's just explaining how they are acting like mindless drones just being pulled in to the party scene.
(Words:120)

(5) "I had expected that Mr.Gatsby would be a florid and corpulent person in his middle years" (Pg. 53).

Here the author is trying to show how Nick judged Gatsby just by what he witnessed from next door. Nick didn't give Gatsby a chance in his mind until he actually met him and found him to be a well groomed, attractive man the same age as himself. Nick was surprised after seeing and hearing all these parties to find out that Gatsby had not actually participated or engaged in them at all, he just threw them.
(Words:76)