The Bolshevik Revolution

Click here to view my presentation of "The Bolshevik Revolution".

Unraveling the Real You

       Throughout the first book of “Cry, The Beloved Country,”Alan Paton greatly reveals who Stephen Kumalo is. His character in this book is both realistic and dynamic and explains how he acknowledges life and doesn’t look at it as some imaginary and fairytale extraordinaire. Stephen Kumalo does not necessarily enjoy to face reality, but he does look it in the face and accept it. So far, the experiences that he has undergone havemade him a stronger person. Coming from an “ideal” village to Johannesburg where everything is destructive and treacherous, he has learned that not everything in life is perfect and organized. Life throws curve balls some times, but Kumalolooks it in the eye and takes his best swing.

        In the beginning chapters of the book, Stephen Kumalocame across as a strong willed and honorable man. Paton describes him as a “humble” that cares for his people and his country. There are signs of struggle when Kumalo is notified about his brother, because he starts to feel the guilt of letting go of his family. His sense of humility almost turns into shame when he remembers that his brother, sister, and son left their town and family to go into deceitful Johannesburg, with no sign of returning.

        As Stephen Kumalo goes throughout Johannesburg to search for his family, he finds out details that disturb him greatly. For instance, his sister Gertrude became a prostitute while looking for her husband who had gone to work on the mines. His son Absalom had been involved with dangerous people that led him into a life of crime. Because of his findings,Kumalo reverts into a deep shame of his family that makes him question his honor and pride. He asks in chapter 13 “where had [he] failed?” in serving his family. Kumalo’s character changes with this as he shows a guilty conscience.

         After Stephen Kumalo is told that his son had in fact murdered a man while attempting to break into a house, he feels an enormous amount of pain because he feels that he had failed as a father and a guide for his son. For a while Kumalo is at a loss for what to do regarding helping Absalom go through trial and court. He shows a sense of denial when he “could not continue” after hearing the horrible news. Then, Kumalo begins to face his problem and take action is helping his son and other family to the best of his ability. Here, Paton shows a side ofKumalo that is strong and honorable, even though he is questioning his ability.

          In this novel, Stephen Kumalo is shown as a round and dynamic character as he changes from prideful, to guilty, to strong. Paton shows Kumalo’s growth as a character as he goes through trials and tribulations that test his will to be an honorable priest and father to his son. His negative guilt turned into him taking action that will be best for those around him. He has changed as a person because of the experience he has gone through, and is now stronger because of it.

Reminiscing On Good Times

​CRACK!!!

​“Oh crap,” I heard my mom say as I walked into the kitchen. I saw the egg shatter across the floor and watched the sticky yolk go EVERYWHERE! I grabbed a wet paper towel for her and helped her clean it up. When I started cleaning, I began to reminisce on the time Michelle and I broke an egg by throwing it back and forth. I laughed as I was remembering that moment and wondered how many things we have broken.

​BOOM!!

​“What was that?” Michelle exclaimed.

“Oh my gosh. It was the bed!” I said.

I will always remember the time Michelle and I had broken the bed. Doesn’t every child get in trouble for jumping on the bed? Yep. That was us. We always got caught jumping on the bed. The ONE time she did not catch us was the ONE time we broke it. My parents weren’t home so we decided to jump on the bed.

We jumped for a good minute, then all of a sudden, we hear a big BOOM and we instantly fell down. I hopped off the bed to see what the commotion was, and the bas board had broken off the bed. My mom STILL does not know about that till this day.

CRACK!!

“OH CRAP!!!”

As we started to get older, and our friendship grew, we became somewhat aggressive. We were like two bulls in a china shop! We wrestled constantly! This one specific time, we took our wrestling to a new extreme. Michelle and I came inside from playing a competitive game of basketball, and we started to wrestle. (Michelle and I were so aggressive that we used to play tackle football with the boys and always win) By this time, we were rolling around on the floor in my living room. Michelle was much stronger than I was, and somehow managed to body slam me onto the couch. As I landed on the couch, you see the couch split in half. My couch is a big couch that seats like ten people. We soon realized that the couch was not fitting back together. When my mom walked in, she was so angry when she saw what we had done. She knew how to fix it, super glue. The couch will forever be broken.

POP!

“OUCH Michelle!!”

“Oops..  Sorry!!”

Still wiping up the mess my mom made for her, I remember that Michelle and I have even broken bones! I guess you could say we were tom boys back in our day. We were upstairs building our weekly fort, and I jammed my index finger. My finger was throbbing and I didn’tknow what to do. I told Michelle that my finger was hurting and pointed it to her. Michelle apparently thought I was kidding, and she pulled it! I hear my finger make a loud pop! I immediately began to cry because of the pain I was in. We could see the curve if my finger and we knew it was broken. I will never forget the thriving pain I was in.

As I finish cleaning up the sticky egg, these memories popped in my head. 16 years old and I’m surprised we haven’t broke anything in a while. We will always be crazy, aggressive, best friends. I would not trade it for the world though. I appreciate my best friend for making me stick up for myself. One of the best lessons in life you can learn is to stick up for yourself, and she has helped me do that. Our friendship will never be broken, unlike all the things we have broken.

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The Reading History of a Non-Reader

As you can see by the title, I am not a big reader. I only read when I have to for an assignment or if my mom makes me. Reading is not "my cup of tea" so I just choose not to read when I do not HAVE to. Reading is like a foreign language for me: DIFFICULT. I have chosen not to read because it usually drives me COMPLETELY insane. My mom never read books to me at night when I was younger, she was never a big reader either. My whole family is actually not readers either. When they were younger, they never read books or focus on reading. They ere too busy hanging out with their friends and work. My brothers never read either while they were in school. They did the same thing my parents did. I am just the same! If I am not playing sports or doing my homework, I am usually trying to hang out with my friends to catch up! Needless to say, reading is not at the top of my list.
When I was a little, petite girl, back in the third grade, we had this system of reading known as AR. I could not tell you what it stood for because that was a LONG time ago. We had to meet a certain goal of points at the end of the nine weeks. We would take an hour out of our day to read a book and take test on the computer to get our points. Each book had points that they were worth, and if you took a test over the book, you would get those points. The bigger the book, the more points you would get. The really smart people usually had a lot of points along with a really high goal to meet.
I remember my friends and I would read the tiniest books so we could get done with them quick. We would read like ten books a day so we could get  ten points each day. We had a specifc goal we had to meet according to how good you are as a reader.I was never very good at reading so I had a really low goal. I would pretty much read the smallest books so I could meet my goal in like a week.
Throughout my middle school and junior high years, I BARELY read! If my teacher gave us an independent reading assignment, I would, but other than that, I did not read. There was, on occasion, you would catch me reading a book. I tried to get into reading a trying to understand books, but I just could not do it. It was just not my "specialty".
If you asked me now if I read, the answer would still be no! I never have time to just sit down and pick up a good book and read. Whenever I have free time, I am usually doing homework. I will still read for an assignment, just not for fun. I do not know what it is about me, but I just cannot read a book for pleasure. I think in my brain, 'There are better things to do then read.' I mean I guess if I did read I would have a bigger vocabulary and probably would make better grades and would probably be smarter. But I guess that's not who God wanted me to be.  This is the life of a non-reader.

I Am Unpredictable

I am unpredictable and crazy
I wonder how the Earth came about
I hear birds chirping aloud
I see walls of white and blue
I want to climb Mt. Everest
I am unpredictable and crazy

I pretend that i am unstopable
I feel all beat up inside
I touch the air outside
I worry that storms will take me away
I cry when I get mad
I am unpredictable and crazy

I understand that life is short
I say live your life with no regrets
I dream that kidnaps will get me
I try to make positive thoughts
I hope one day I wouldn't be negative about myself
I am unpredictable and crazy

The Untold Biblical Story

          The story, A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings: A Tale For Children, has a story behing that most people wouldn't recognize. This man just all of a sudden fell out of the sky! That's unreal right? People we afraid, amazed, and many other things towards him. When I started reading this, I was thinking to myslef, 'Why am I reading this?' Not only did I have to read this for my summer assignment, it also caught my attention.
          When I read the part where the man had fallen from the sky, I immediately thought that it was a fallen angel. Throughout this story, I thought about the Bible. When people were sick back iin the old days, families would take them to Jesus so he could heal them. That's exactly what this man mysterious man did! They would bring them and he wuold magivally heal them.
           During the time of when Jesus was alive, when someone sinned, he would change them into different things. Sometimes it was animals, objects, and maybe a different person. When the girl in this story disobeyed her parents, the man had swtched her into a spider. This stroy has a  lot of events that have happened in the Bible. Many peole in this story believed he was an angel, but most were not convinced.
           This "so called angel" took no part in his act. What I mean by that is he was humble. He never let the popularity get to him. Jesus never let his popularity go to his head. He was always humble and just helped every way possible. This man just keeps reminding me of Jesus.
           All of the people in this tale could never really figure out what he actually was. I strongly believe this man was a fallen angel. Angels are willing to do anything to help people, and that's what this man did. God and him were only worried about themselves and keeping themselves healthy. This is why I think this story has a story behind it, you just have to look deeper.