What I Have Enjoyed So Far

We have read so many wonderful stories by so many wonderful and bright authors but I want to list my top three favorites. Number one is, of course, Edgar Allan Poe. I have read the Tell Tale Heart in 10th grade and fell in love with his writing since. We had a big book full of his incredible writings in my library in the dining room or what used to be the dining room. But ever since reading that story in 10th grade and reading more to the point of time where we read more in our online English class made me a lover of more of his dark tales. The second one I have enjoyed reading was The Gettysburg Address. I have learned about it before but what I liked about it was that one of the activities we had to was to put ourselves in the shoes of either a former slave, soldier, the wife of a Union soldier, or someone attending when Lincoln gave the speech. I chose the view of the Union soldier. I listed the things I would have seen and heard as well as things from the battle such as gunshots and the groans of the soldiers that were wounded. The third one I enjoyed reading was an aphorism by Ralph Waldo Emerson. As I have written ina previous blog I chose the aphorism of the civilized man being more dependent on the carriage than in his own feet. I will not go to deep into detail but we as Americans have become to dependent on technology than in the natural resources we were given a long time ago. I would rather read a book in my hands than on a tablet. I have enjoyed reading these and many others and I am really looking forward to reading more amazing stories in the last couple sessions!!

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My Other Favorite Work by Poe

Of course you all know that we have read so many stories written by the greatest Gothic writer of all time Mr. Edgar Allan Poe. I have to mention one of my other favorites written by him. The Raven. As you know (and I will try to be accurate with the story) it is about a man who is being haunted by something of a form of a raven who keeps coming and repeating phrases ending with "never more". As the raven kept coming the man kept demamding the raven to tell what its purpose was for being there. In the beginning of the poem he was dealing with depression and heartache from losing someone he had loved a long time ago and I think the raven driving him to the brink and eventually into insanity did not help his situation that much. Like I have mentioned before and what I will mention over and over again I truly admire Poe and his writing. He is the type of author that I could read over and over again.

Emerson's Aphorisms

I had recently done one of the blackboard discussions for this session and it was about Ralph Waldo Emerson's aphorisms. The one I wanted to discuss about was the civilized man has built a coach but has lost use of his feet. Even though sometimes the technologies are good for when it is needed we often tend to use them too much to the point were that is all we depend on and we just sit there. It kind of reminds me of the movie Wall-E. Time had advanced as well as all modern technology and all that mankind has depended on were robots to get them the things the needed instead of getting it themselves and floating chairs to get them places instead of walking. Another example is in Back To The Future part 2. When Doc and Marty went forward to the year 2015 they have shoes that have power laces were it just tightens your shoes instead of you tying it for you. I truly like that one of many of Emerson's aphorisms. He has a lot more good ones but this one stuck out to me the most*

A Great Activist

So far we have read so many stories and speeches written by so many great people, but one of them has truly struck my fancy. The women's rights activist Sojourner Truth. The thing that truly like about her was that she has been through so much in her life including slavery and she came up strong. She also held onto a strong belief: that women can work just as hard as men can. I think she can be one of the many historical women that today's women, especially women who are strong in the rights of women, can really look up to her.