The End

During this year in Mrs. Gilman's Honors English class ( best class and teacher ever) I feel like I have grown not only as a reader and a writer, but an intelligent part of society. I have a better understanding of literature and I am able to express this now. In my opinion the blogs were the best tool we used this year because we were able to express ourselves and respond to the things we liked and disliked. Another thing these blogs taught me is that if you forget to do them then they'll hurt your grade dramatically. 0/20... Ouch!! But on a good note I did do the majority of them and learned from them. And along with that lesson another lesson that I learned and wrote about in my New Years Resolution Blog was that I do some of my best writing at 11:00 PM on Saturdays, but it isn't always the ideal time to do it ( I guess procrastination will have to be on next year's resolution list because it's 11:00 PM now on the due date and guess who is doing their blog...). I'm sad to say that I succumbed to the laziness a little too much in terms of the blogs, but I started strong and hopefully with this blog I'll finish strong. Which leads to my ever so thought provoking quote...

"Hard work often pays off after time, but laziness always pays off now." -Anonymous

Looking back on some the great work, if I do say so myself ( and I do), I have written this year we can see that in the Blog Intro, the first blog I wrote, I said that, "I write as much as I can think of. Usually I can't think of much, so I compensate with long sentences that drag on (that is something I need to work on this year)." And based on that last sentence that has not changed... One more post that I used to try to better myself with at the beginning of this school year came back in November when I posted about critiquing a five part paragraph about To Kill A Mockingbird. I basically said that I should always be looking for something to add in my writing. I guess this worked out well because I scored 192/200 and 145/150 on my last two essays. With those scores I am pretty confident in saying my writing has improved.

Even though my hard work put into to every blog this year tapered off toward the end because of my forgetful nature I still can say that I made it through 9th grade English and to top it all off it was an honors level class. I'm patting myself on the shoulder for that one. Now I have been talking quite a lot about myself in this conclusion and not the real genius behind my success, Mrs. Gilman. Seriously, I could not have made it through this year without your knowledge, insight, and patience and I'm glad and proud to say I had you as a teacher. And I am also proud to say that I, Nicolas Smistad, completed a blog before 11:30!

Connection Picture

The reason I chose this picture is when Pip gets money all his troubles seem to go away. When he receives his fortune he gets to be a gentleman, something he has wanted for a long time. He is also treated better by people such a Uncle Pumblechook. He was mean to him in the past, but upon the discovery of his riches Pumblechook suddenly changes his perspective on Pip. Also, Pip's new wealth can buy him anything he wants like furniture, servants, and friends. All of his new "gentleman" friends are only his friends because of his riches.

Great Expectations Connection

I think that a similar story to Great Expectations is The Sandlot. I thought of this story because I watched it a few hours ago with my little brother. The story lines are actually basically the same when you take into account that we haven't started stage three yet. The Sandlot is a man looking back on his life, evaluating his physical and mental triumphs and downfalls, while also sharing similar motifs such as guilt, bettering yourself, and crime and punishment.

The first way The Sandlot is similar to Great Expectations is that both stories are told by a narrator who has already lived through the sequence of events in the plot and is sharing his thoughts as he relives them. Pip does this in GE and "Smalls" does it in TS and although they are based in very different settings, they are still similar in theme.

In TS Smalls messes up by using his dad's baseball signed by Babe Ruth and hitting it into his neighbors yard. He and his friends work frantically work day and night to get the ball back before his dad notices the ball is gone. Smalls is almost torn apart with guilt when they think tat they cannot get the ball back. Pip in GE acts the same way when he steals the meat pie from his own house and lets it get eaten.

Another way The Sandlot is like Great Expectations is that, in TS, Smalls wants to be just like the neighbor kid Bennie Rodriguez who is a beast at baseball. Smalls looks up to him. When he finds out that the science project he works on in his room really isn't that cool in Bennie's eyes then he is suddenly ashamed of it. This is just like in GE when Pip, who is looked down upon by Estella for being poor, wants to become a gentleman to better himself. But once he does he then becomes ashamed of the entire social class he was once apart of.

Finally, TS is like GE because of the reoccurring theme in the novel, crime and punishment. TS portrays this theme by Smalls and his friends trying to get his dad's ball. They end up trying to trespass on private property and by committing this crime are punished by being attacked by a humongous dog. The same motif is appears in GE. First of all, the prisoners. They commit crimes and they pay for it by going to prison. And secondly, and although this was minor, Pip stays out by the church too long in the beginning of the novel and his punishment is in the form of the "tickler".

*LATE- Chapter 9 Quote Response

The day that Pip is referring to is the day he spends with Mrs. Havisham and Estella. This day was life changing for him because he loses his childish, happy-go-lucky outlook on life. He realizes throughout the day that he was a lower class and that being higher mattered. Pip soon becomes ashamed of his home, family, social class, and life in general because he thinks he needs to live up to what he believes Mrs. Havisham and Estella like or tolerate. At this point in the book he realizes he is growing up. He used to want to be an apprentice to Joe and was enthusiastic about working in the blacksmith, but now Pip wants nothing to do with it and thinks lower of Joe because of it.

I think the turning point in my life was one day in baseball when I was ten. I just got onto a new team for an all-star season and the coach that was assigned to us was an out of state college assistant coach. Our team had practice in the middle of the afternoon one Sunday and I didn't want to be there because there was a big game, or something along those lines, on TV that day. Being the impatient ten year I was then, I began to mess around with the new coach thinking he would be friendly and kind. But when I was finished an at bat and stayed in the dugout too long, talking to one of my friends on the team, the coach proceeded to chew us out in a very vicious way for a ten year old. At most points I stopped listening because I was sad and angry, yet one thing he said sticks in my mind to this day and that is, "You can't mess with people now, you're in the real world son and next time your messing around you might as well go home because I won't tolerate messing around!" Now, 'messing' wasn't the exact terminology he used and that quote may actually be a slur of another coach's words I have heard mixed with this guy's, but it still taught me an important lesson. Behave well, follow rules, and don't stay in the dugout too long.

Great Expectations Stage 2

In stage two of the novel Pip becomes a wealthy gentleman overnight. He fits into his new life quite quickly and soon acts as if this is the person he has been his entire life. Pip spends a lot of money when he realizes he has it because all he has to do is ask Jaggers for sum of it and Jaggers will willfully oblige. The spending of the money seems to make him very selfish because the money is coming from his benefactor and Pip does not have to work for any of it and does not care where it is coming from, just as long as he is getting it.

Pip, and his new unhealthy habit of spending money, fit into the motif we talked about in class that related to the longing for becoming a gentleman. When Pip was back at home with Joe he longed to become a gentleman with obscene amounts of cash. Well now that his wildest dreams have come true he is a gentleman, but along with that title comes descriptions such as spoiled, arrogant, and lazy. Pip now looks down on the group of society he was once apart of which plays along with another theme we discussed in class, irony.

Great Expectations Question

I was reading pg. 49 and while Uncle Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe were leaving Dickens says that Joe and Pip are, "waiting for the chaise-cart." What exactly is a "chaise-cart." I have a feeling it is obviously a type of transportation, but I would like to know the specifics. Like is it public or private, large or small, and other interesting facts about it.

The Importance of Being Earnest: Group Essay

Algernon and Cecily come together from tantamount personalities. Both lied their way into the relationship they now share. Algernon through Bunburying and Cecily through her diary in which she said, "... We have been engaged for the past three months." They habitually long for each other without even knowing if the other exists. Jack and Gwendolyn share interests in being wealthy. They both think of themselves as part of a higher stature which is an epigram in and of itself because they are rich and own land in the city and country. Miss Prism and Dr. Chasuble use social commentary to awkwardly avoid the deep connection that they share. They both choose to talk about society factors instead of themselves.