MORE BLOGGING!

Oh my goodness! Guess what? I get to blog on another book! But this time, I get to blog on whatever book I want! I'm currently thinking between "Water for Elephants" and a Jane Austen book. The thing that would be nice about Water for Elephants is that I'm already reading it for book club! But I just LOVE Jane Austen. She's an amazing author. 7 MORE WEEKS OF BLOGGING!

The Sea Inside: depressing or thoughtful?

The Sea Inside, written by Alejandro Amenabar and Mateo Gil, is a film in which a man is quadriplegic, and he wants to be allowed to commit assisted suicide. I liked this film, but it was a bit too depressing for me. I much prefer movies that are kind of sad, but then end up happy. One could say that this movie ended up happy, but I don’t think so. Julia did not remember Ramón at all, and she was still sick. Before he committed suicide, Ramón didn’t even make up with his family. They must feel terrible that he is gone now and that they never said a true good-bye. I know I would feel badly. However, it was very successful in getting its message across to its viewers. Even though assisted suicide is still illegal in Spain and many other countries, it has probably changed the views of some people on that topic because they realized that a lot of people who would like assisted suicide are in Ramón’s position. And Ramon’s position was very sad and rather pitiful even. Viewers of this film would feel sorry for him and they might change their opinions.

Many films and books have things in common, like their literary aspects. Films have these even though they aren’t literature. One literary aspect of this film was the plot. It had a very interesting plot that made it a very climactic movie. There were twists and turns that made you want to keep watching. The characters also made the movie good. Most of the characters in it had a different opinion on whether Ramón should die or not. This created conflict within the characters, which made them clash a lot. Manuela, Rosa, José, German, Javier, Padre Fransisco, and Hermano Andrés all want Ramón to stay alive and they really don’t want to help him commit suicide. On the other hand, Julia, Géné, Marc, and Santiago all support him and would help him die if it was legal. Another literary aspect was the setting of the film. It was important because it was by the sea, which was a major symbol of the film. It was also in the countryside of Spain, so they were probably also very conservative in their view of pro-life or pro-choice. Spain is very Catholic, and the Catholic view is that assisted suicide is a complete sin. If they hadn’t been in Spain, they might’ve had a different opinion, so there wouldn’t even be a movie. There would be no conflict in it. The literary aspects are important to this film, because the film would be completely different without them.

But, there were also many cinematic aspects to the film that are unique to just movies. Like the music used in it. one example that I liked in the movie was when he was ‘flying’ to the sea, over the villages and mountains. There was a beautiful, very famous aria playing during the shot. It is beautiful, but it also makes the viewers feel sentimental and sad, which is what the writers wanted us to feel in this scene. It’s when Ramón is flashing back to when he dived into the ocean and became paralyzed. The viewers are supposed to feel sad for Ramón that he can no longer swim in the ocean, let alone go to the sea. Actually, in this same scene, the camera movement, photography, and editing are also interesting. The camera doesn’t shoot one view and then cut right to the next; it actually makes the viewers feel like they are flying with Ramón. I also think that the costumes were very appropriate in this film. All the characters that made up Ramón’s family were dressed as Spanish farmers, which is exactly what they were. And all of Ramón’s lawyers, who were probably from a large city, were dressed in clothes that habitants of a large cosmopolitan city in Spain could possibly wear.

The Sea Inside and the Diving Bell and the Butterfly are two true stories that have very similar topics. One similarity between them is that they are both memoirs of men who were dying. A second (rather obvious) similarity between them is that the two main characters, Jean and Ramón, are both quadriplegics. Yes, this is very obvious, but it makes one think that their messages might be the same. But they aren’t, which leads me to their main difference. Jean is almost optimistic about the remainder of his life. He wants to live it up while he can, and tell as many others as he can that life is really worth living. He wants to live his quadriplegic life to the fullest. He still wants to wear his normal clothes, and he still wants to see his family and friends. He just wants to try and continue his normal life, even though quadriplegia is not a normal condition. On the other hand, Ramón just wants to be rid of life. He wants to live no longer. The only thing that he wants at that point in his life was to commit suicide. That is the only thing that was on his mind. And he was also very selfish about this. He would accept no other opinions about it. I believe that Jean and ramon had completely different outlooks on life, and even though they are both quadriplegic, there is no way to say their situations are the same.

I would recommend this film to people. It’s a really good film with a good message, and it really makes you think about life. Although it was much too depressing for my taste, I liked the film. Its cinematic aspects were used brilliantly, and they all made the movie beautiful and touching. The literary aspects were also used well. They made the movie climactic and interesting. If there were no different cinematic aspects, it would have been boring and would have seemed tedious. When the shots changed, it got one’s attention and made the movie really moving. Without literary aspects, the movie would have also been extremely boring and without conflict or in the plot. So, overall, it was a very good film, and I’d recommend it to anyone looking for a movie that makes you think. My last thought: was it depressing? Or maybe just thoughtful?

Tuesdays With Morrie (pgs. 139-192) Week 5, Post A

VOCAB:
1. inherent (154): Occurring as a natural part or consequence.
2. innately (155): Possessed as an essential characteristic; inherent.

APPEALS :
1. Logical: pg. 161- when Ted Koppel from Nightline comes to Morrie’s house and asks him how bad Morrie’s ALS is getting. Morrie can only move his hand half-way up his stomach.
2. Emotional: pg. 163- At the end of the interview with Ted Koppel, Morrie starts looking up towards the ceiling and almost talking to God. Many people have seen this happen to people who are dying. Even though they were not the most spiritual person during their life, at the end they just want to be connected with him and the angels.
3. Logical: pg. 172- Morrie and Mitch talk about what the perfect day would be for Morrie. Morrie would do things like talk to his closest friends, go dancing, and go to sleep in a nice warm bed. It was simple, but that is the perfect day to Morrie.

QUOTE:
“None of us can undo what we’ve done, or relive a life already recorded. But if Professor Morrie Schwartz taught me anything at all, it was this: there is no such thing as ‘too late’ in life. He was changing until the day he said good-bye” (190). The significance of this quote is that you cannot relive your life, or change anything you’ve done in the past. What’s left is the future, and enjoying life then.

THEME:
The theme of this book at its end is that once someone dies, it’s only their body that leaves the earth. Their spirit will always be here with us, it will never die.

Tuesdays With Morrie (pgs. 139-192), Week 5, Post B

23 tissues. That's how many I went through in the last thirty pages of Tuesdays with Morrie. I wasn’t crying because it was incredibly sad like he had a hard painful death. It was just such a touching ending and it was the good kind of crying. The kind where it’s just so sweet and you just can’t believe that a thing like that happened. It also made me remember about when my grandparents died and how sad I was. I remember thinking, “why did this have to happen to me? It’s just not fair.” But after reading Tuesdays with Morrie, I realized that it happens to everyone, and it’s just death. It shouldn’t scare people. It will happen to all of us, and we’ll just have to get used to it. But we shouldn’t feel like we have to avoid it either. It’s going to happen whether we get used to it or not. This thought might scare some people, but it kind of makes me feel at ease with death and facing it. I don’t feel so worried about it or awkward around the topic. Now that I’ve witnessed it and felt its grief, it doesn’t scare me. I don’t want people to be really sad that I’ve died (when I do, years from now); I want them to remember me for the good times I enjoyed in life. This is the same outlook that Morrie had, that surprised so many people. It’s changed the lives and opinions of many people since the book was written and published. This was a wonderful book.

Tuesdays With Morrie (pgs 99-138), Week 4, Post B

In this post, I will analyze the protagonist, Mitch Albom. One characteristic of Mitch is that he is afraid of death. I think the main reason for his visiting Morrie every week on Tuesday (besides seeing his old professor) is that he wants to know what death is like. He really wants to know how to deal with it, and learn from someone who is actually going through it when he visits him. I believe that once Morrie dies, Mitch will finally know how he should live the rest of his life. He will know just how to treat people when he’s dying, and he’ll know what he should do to make it not seem so bad. A second characteristic of Mitch is his materialistic beliefs. He is a sports journalist who interviews athletes that really have it all. They are rich, handsome, athletic, and have the bset things. Everyone wants to be a professional athlete. They have it all. So whenever Mitch interviewed them, he felt like the things these athletes had were the most important things to have in life. This made him always want the best car, the biggest house, the most money, when in reality, it would make him no more impressive to anyone else in his life. The athletes he interviewed would think no differently of him, and people with not quite as much money as him wouldn’t look up at him as a role model, they would think he was a rich, stuck-up person who cares about nothing else but materialistic things. So when Mitch discussed these ideas with Morrie, Morrie told him that the material things in life are not important. The only thing that’s important is how you loved someone, what you did in your lifetime that helped others, and what you did to change the world in a good way.
I completely agree with Morrie on this. I try not to focus on the material things in life. More focus on what I’m doing and how I could be helping others have a better life. How I’m positively changing the world.

Tuesdays With Morrie (pgs 99-138), Week 4, Post A

VOCAB:
1. Detachment (pg. 119) The state of being separate or detached. The state of being separate or detached. Indifference to or remoteness from the concerns of others.
2. Inconsequential (pg. 127) of little or no importance, insignificant, trivial.

APPEALS:
1. (Emotional) -When Morrie is talking about how nothing that’s a material thing is important. I think this philosophy of life has impacted many people in their lives, changed them too.
2. (Emotional) - Mitch describes how he loves to see Morrie’s face light up when Mitch walks in every Tuesday. This happens to many people when they have a loved one sick.
3. (Logical) - Morrie tells the story about how his dad died when he was a lot younger. It’s an anecdote, and anecdotes are always a type of logical appeal.

QUOTE:
“This is our last thesis together…we want to get it right” (133). Morrie says this because it was the entire reason for Mitch Albom writing the book.

THEME:
The emerging theme of this book in the section I have just read is all about the importance of family, and being married and having a partner in life, your spouse or a really good friend.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly Reflection

“Wow”. That was my reaction to The Diving Bell and The Butterfly. It was all I could think of. It was just so amazing! No offense to any of our past English teachers, but the books they have chosen haven’t been all that popular among the students. But this book was different. I actually really enjoyed reading it. It was a really moving piece about how this poor man had to endure locked-in syndrome for months on end, not able to move or take care of his own self while his mind was still free as a butterfly. I really enjoy reading books like this. Memoirs of people who have really full and wonderful lives, and then have months to think about things like their life’s philosophies. They tell us that we have to make every moment count, and to not let our lives be ruined by bad mistakes and choices. Well, how are we supposed to know what a bad mistake or choice is if we haven’t heard any examples of lives like this. Jean’s lifetime seemed like a waste to him. He didn’t do things that he realized were really meaningful to him. He realizes in his last months that the important things in life are bigger than being rich, important and famous. Even though that may seem like the most important things, they really aren’t. We have to treasure everything we do, or we’ll feel like we never did anything important to us. I think that a second point Jean-Dominique Bauby was trying to tell us about was how you can be having a wonderful life, and then have it all be gone in a flash. What happened to Bauby could have happened to anyone. It really could have, even though it might not be the most common disease people get. At the moment, no one can do anything to prevent it from happening. We don’t know when it could happen. Things that are good come to an end too soon. One of my favorite quotes is, “the people we love the most are taken from us too soon”. I believe that this quote is extremely true. Because taking the people we love the most is always too soon. We will never, ever be ready for it. This quote can apply to the things we love the most, too, not just the people. I loved this book. It really makes you think. It’s not just about things happening to some person that we’ll never know. The things that happen to this certain person actually make us think about us and how it affects us personally.

Tuesdays WIth Morrie (pgs. 47-97), Week 3, Post B

Dear Mitch,

You have really written a truly amazing and moving book. I can’t believe how much it has changed my views on life so quickly. I think that it’s so cool that you stumbled across your old professor by chance on TV one night. I mean, what a coincidence! What if you had been out doing something that night, making you unable to casually flip through the channels? Would you ever have thought about your old college professor again? Would you have looked him up to go see how he was? What if that thought came too late? You would have never seen him again. Your life might be completely different right now if that had been the case. You must feel so privileged to know someone like that so closely. I would have felt so honored and lucky to know him. Morrie sounds like a truly astonishing and great guy. Have you completely changed your outlook on life because of Morrie? I think that if I had known someone like this, my whole entire life would change. I would treat people differently. I would also spend my time differently. I think that I’d spend time doing things that were really important to me, like being with the people I loved and cared about. I would also do more things on the spur-of-the-moment. I wouldn’t waste my time doing things that I could consider less important to me. From what I have read in your book so far, it sounds like you have adopted these theories too. Which makes a lot of sense; because you personally talked with the man who wished he had done that sort of thing more often. Thank you for writing this book. It has changed my view of the world already, and I’m only on page 97.

Emma

Tuesdays With Morrie (pgs. 47-97), Week 3, Post A

VOCAB: 1. Clamor (-ing) (pg. 62)-1) a loud outcry, uproar. 2) loud demand or complaint. This word is used to talk about all the people that wanted to see Morrie, to talk to him and do the things that Mitch is doing with him.
2. Exuberance (pg. 82)-the state of mind of being abundant, luxurious, and high-spirited. This word was used to describe Morrie when he was talking to a friend about how he wanted to be healthy and active when he was older.

APPEALS: 1. Emotional-(pg. 95-97). When Mitch remembers things about his younger brother, he talks about how he and his brother were completely different people. His brother was always the one that was praised even though he did things that weren’t making the best choices. Most people can think about how different their siblings are from them. It’s an emotional appeal for them.
2. Emotional-(pg. 90). When Mitch realizes that it’s the first week of September, and that this is the first time Morrie won’t be going back to his school to teach another group of new students. This is a reality that must be really hard for Morrie to deal with after going back 35 years in a row. Other retired school teachers must know just how this feels like.
3. Logical-(pg. 48). Mitch brings food to share with Morrie. He brought food because in all the years they spent together, they always enjoyed eating together. This is logical because it makes sense that Mitch would bring food to him in the early afternoon.

QUOTE: “Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live” (82). I really like this quote. It does seem a little depressing, but if you think about it for a few minutes, you realize ust how true it is. The only way to know if you lived well and had a good life is to die, because that’s the end of your life. You can’t know how well you did something or how much you liked it until it’s all over.

THEME: I think the theme of this book is pretty constant so far. I believe that it’s still how everyone needs to stop and smell the roses once in a while, not let life disappear before your eyes before it’s all gone in a flash.

Tuesdays with Morrie (pgs. 23-47), Week 2, Post A

VOCAB: 1. Tabouli (pg. 28) -- a salad of fine-ground bulgur, parsley, tomatoes, green onions, mint, olive oil, and lemon juice. This is one of the things that Morrie is having for lunch while Mitch visits him for the first time.
2. Alienation (pg. 47) – the state of being withdrawn or isolated from the objective world, as through indifference or disaffection. This term is used when Mitch is talking about how he wasted away all his time since he graduated from college, how he alienated people be burying himself in his own accomplishments.

APPEALS: Emotional appeal - pg. 44. Mitch talks of the time when he lost his job because of a strike that happened in his workers’ union. I believe this is an emotional appeal because of how many others in the world have lost their jobs because of a union strike. Emotional appeals can relate to other people and make them remember things that were traumatic and important in their lives. This was definitely an important point in Mitch’s life because without the strike going on, he wouldn’t have been able to make the time to see Morrie every Tuesday for their “life lesson classes.” And these are the whole point of the memoir.
Logical appeal – pg. 45. “I picked up the phone and dialed Morrie’s number. Connie brought him to the phone. ‘You’re coming to visit me’, he said, less a question than a statement. Well. Could I? ‘How about Tuesday?’ Tuesday would be good, I said. Tuesday would be fine.” This is logical. It makes sense. Lots of people make arrangements to meet like this.

QUOTE: “So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into our life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning” (pg. 43). I really like this quote because it talks about how people can just go around their whole entire lives and never get to do anything that they really want to accomplish because they are too concerned with going with the flow, and paying hardly any attention to the world around them. People can do that, and then I’m absolutely positive that they regret it a whole lot later in life when they’re retired or the lives are just less stressful. I don’t want this to happen to me because there are so many things I want to be able to do. But I don’t want to do them and then never appreciate the fact that I did do it, because I’d want to remember forever how I changed someone’s life by what I did. You can’t go through your life without giving something purpose and meaning. It just isn’t logical. At some point in everyone’s lives, I’m sure we all really want to do something that will make a difference in the world. Some of us live up to that, and some of us don’t. That’s okay. Just so long as it has meaning and a purpose to you. I like to think of it as, “You must change your own life before you can change the world’s.” This is part of my philosophy of life, as well as it is Morrie's.

EMERGING THEME: The emerging theme of the book at this point is pretty much just to live life up to the fullest, and don’t waste your precious time on earth by doing things that aren’t that important to you.