An Update :)

I just have to share this...

I am currently taking AP Literature, and it is a blast; I strongly encourage you to take it!

It is so much fun, and there are only two students :)

Yes, we are reading Macbeth currently, reader's theater style. I just want to set up a camera some day and record us...in a room by ourselves reading heart-wrenching soliloquies to no audience whatsoever.

Where else do you get to play three different characters all talking to each other by yourself?
Only in Dr. J's AP Literature class reading Macbeth!

How fun!

Happy reading.

Haughty

Quick post today :)

My next literary term is another favorite because of the excerpt that I found, Pride and Prejudice.  

Here is the definition:

Haughty: disdainfully proud, snobbish, arrogant, lofty or noble, exalted

“Do you play and sing, Miss Bennet?”

“A Little.”

“Oh! Then – some time or other we shall be happy to hear you.  Our instrument is a capital one, probably superior to – You shall try it some day.  Do your sisters play and sing?”

“One of them does.”

“Why did not you all learn? You ought to have learned.  The Miss Webbs all play, and their father has not so good an income as yours. –Do you draw?”

“No, not at all.”

“What, none of you?”

“Not one.”

“That is very strange.  But I suppose you had no opportunity.  Your mother should have taken you to town every spring for the benefit of masters.”

“My mother would have had no objection, but my father hates London.”

“Has your governess left you?”

“We never had a governess.”

“No governess! How is that possible? Five daughters brought up at home without a governess! –I never heard of such a thing.  Your mother must have been quite a slave to your education.”

Elizabeth could hardly help smiling, as she assured her that had not been the case. 

“Then who taught you? Who attended you? Without a governess you must have been neglected.”

“Compared with some families, I believe that we were, but such of us as wanted to learn, never wanted to means.  We were always encouraged to read, and had all the masters that were necessary.  Those who chose to be idle certainly might.”

“Aye, no doubt; but that is what a governess will prevent, and if I had known your mother, I should have advised her most strenuously to engage one.” 

Surprisingly, I have never read this book.  But it is toward the top of the list of books that I still have to read (which seems to grow every day).  When I do finally read it, I will let you know!

Happy Reading haughty characters that are funny and add so much to a story :)

Fanciful

The next Tone and Attitude Word I had on my list is one of my personal favorites. 

Fanciful

Here is the definition that I put together:

Characterized by, or showing fancy, capricious or whimsical in appearance, suggested by fancy, imaginary, unreal, led by fancy rather than by reason or experience, whimsical

And the excerpt that I came up with to demonstrate this term is one of my personal favorites as well, dating back from when I was about 2. 

C.S. Lewis' Prince Caspian

This excerpt comes after Lucy and her siblings arrive in Narnia for the second time.  They are traveling to find Prince Caspian with the dwarf Trumpkin.  They have been traveling for a couple days now, lost their way and had to come all the way back to where they started, where they make camp for the night. This is Lucy's fanciful experience...

“Lucy woke out of the deepest sleep you can imagine, with the feeling that the voice she liked best in the world had been calling her name.  She thought a first it was her father’s voice, but that did not seem quite right.  Then she thought it was Peter’s voice, but that did not seem to fit either. She did not want to get up; not because she was tired – on the contrary she was wonderfully rested and all the aches had gone from her bones – but because she felt so extremely happy and comfortable.  She was looking straight up at the Narnian moon, which is larger than ours, and at the starry sky, for the place where they had bivouacked was comparatively open.

‘Lucy,’ came the call again, neither her father’s voice nor Peter’s.  She sat up, trembling with excitement but not with fear.  The moon was so bright that the whole forest landscape around her was almost clear as day, though it looked wilder.  Behind her was the fir-wood; away to her right the jagged cliff tops on the far side of the gorge; straight ahead, open grass to where a glade of trees began about a bow-shot away.  Lucy looked very hard at the trees of that glade.

‘Why, I do believe they’re moving,; she said to herself. ‘They’re walking about.’

She got up, her heart beating wildly, and walked towards them.  There was certainly a noise in the glade, a noise such as trees make in high wind, though there was no wind tonight.  Yet it was not exactly as ordinary tree-noise either.  Lucy felt there was a tune in it, but she could not catch the tune any more than she had been able to catch the words when the trees had so nearly talked to her the night before…and now there was no doubt that the trees were really moving – moving in and out through one another as if in a complicated country dance…she went fearlessly in among them, dancing herself as she leaped this way and that to avoid being run into by these huge partners.  But she was only half interested in them.  She wanted to get beyond them to something else; it was from beyond them that the dear voice had called.” 

Happy Fanciful reading!

Lone Survivor: An Account of Operation Redwing

I will continue my exploration of Tone and Attitude words tomorrow, but I had to share with you the latest book that I have read.

I seem to read in spurts.  I didn't have an independent book that I was seriously reading from for a while, and then I stumbled across Lone Survivor while I was searching for another book on Amazon, and I read it in four days....now I find myself bookless again.

Oh well. It would have been nearly impossible to read this book over a long period of time anyway. 

Let me precursor my summary of the book by saying this.  

I have found that even though I have lived during the War on Terror, I don't know very much about it.  Yes, I remember 9/11.  Yes, I know why we are there fighting. Yes, I know what I hear on the radio, see on the TV, or read in the occasional news updates, but I don't know the real stories, the raw truth of what is happening.  I only know what the media tells me.

Enter this incredible book about Navy SEALs. 

As the subtitle suggests, this isn't a cheery story. But from it, I did learn what I was hoping I would, a real story about what goes on over there, the real emotions, the real truth.  

 [Just so you know if you plan on reading this, if this book was a movie, it would probably be between PG-13 and R...most likely R.  But this is a story depicting real life circumstances  and there is no way to make a story like this less gruesome and still tell the truth of what happened to the team of four Navy SEALs]

Here is a summary of what I took away from this book, 

This book is written by Marcus Luttrell, a Texan and a Navy SEAL.  Ever since he was 12 years old, Marcus was determined to become a Navy SEAL, along with his identical twin brother, Morgan.  When they were in high school, they were trained by a neighbor who would condition groups of boys who wanted to go into the armed forces.  After he graduated high school, Marcus went on to boot camp, and then to SEAL training.  It would take too long, and take away from your experience of the book to explain everything that he went through in training, but suffice it to say, he endured the toughest training in the entire world, and emerged an established Navy SEAL.  

After BUD/s (the official SEAL training), Marcus went on to be trained to become a sniper and a medic.  After the completion of these, he was ready to be sent overseas.  

Marcus would be assigned to SEAL Team 10, where he spent time in Iran tracking down Taliban leaders. His team was then transferred to the mountains of Afghanistan on the boarder of Pakistan, where they continued to track down important terrorist leaders.  

It was on one of these missions to catch one very important leader (so much so that Luttrell uses a pseudonym in the book) that his life would change drastically.  He and three others from his SEAL team, Mickey, Danny, and Axe, were dropped in the mountains of Afghanistan overlooking a village where there was strong intelligence that this leader was located (surrounded by 200 or so of his military trained followers). 

Once they were dug in, overlooking the village, Marcus and his other three friends were ambushed by around 80 of the Taliban soldiers.  After retreating down the mountain by literally jumping off cliffs, Marcus and the three others were surrounded.  With their radios not functioning, they had were unable to call in reinforcements, and one by one, Marcus watched his friends die around him.  Danny fell first, then Mickey. Even though both of them were hit numerous times, they kept firing their rifles right until the end.  At last, only Marcus and Axe were left, but Axe was mortally wounded.  The two of them were hiding behind a log when an RPG hit, and Marcus was shot over the cliff.  When he awoke, the gunfire had ceased, and he was alone.  But miraculously, his gun had landed just beside him.

And so what followed were five days of surviving in the mountains of Afghanistan, wounded, without any provisions.  

What hits me about this story is the fact that Marcus never wrote this book to pat himself on the back, to prove what a great warrior he is, or to draw any attention to himself whatsoever.  He wrote this book for the three SEALs that never made it home.  He wrote it so that their sacrifice would not go unnoticed, or only remembered as a two-second blurb on the radio.  

His incredible faith in God and the incredible sacrifice of his friends are the main characters of this book.  

And so, I challenge you to read this or a book like it, because there are stories out there that very few people know about that are worthy of being known.  This is one of them.  

Earnest

Now I begin with earnest.

Definition: Serious in intention, purpose, or effort, sincerely zealous.  Showing depth and sincerity of feeling, seriously important, grave. 

My selection: Scottish Chiefs

“Wallace proceeded, and with dignity announced the hatred that was now poured upon him by a large part of that nobility who had been so eager to invest him with the high office that he held, ‘Though they have broken their oaths,’ cried he, ‘I have fulfilled mine,  They vowed to me all lawful obedience.  I swore to free Scotland or to die. Every castle in this realm is restored to its ancient lord; every fortress is filled with a native garrison; the sea is covered with our ships; and the kingdom sits secure behind her well-defended bulwarks.  Such have I, through the strength of the Almighty arm, made Scotland.  Today I deliver up my commission, since its design is accomplished.  I resign the regency.’ As he spoke he took off his helmet, and stood uncovered before the people.

‘No, no!’ seemed the voice from every lip; ‘we will acknowledge no other power, we will obey no other leader.’

Wallace expressed his sense of their attachment; but repeating that he had fulfilled the end of his office by setting them free, he explained that his retaining it was no longer necessary. ‘Should I remain your regent,’ continued he, ‘ the country would be involved in ruinous dissensions.  So I bequeath your liberty to the care of your chiefs.  But, should it again be in danger, remember that while life breaths in this heart, the spirit of William Wallace will be with you still.”

Any other ones you can think of?

Happy Reading! 

Tone and Attitude Words

This year I am taking AP Literature.  

[You can imagine my excitement...a whole two classes a day on literature!]

My latest big assignment was to explore about 16 tone and attitude words, define them, and bring in examples from literature that employ that particular style.  

And so I began to go through old blog posts, flip through old books, and relive those amazing adventures that I had embarked upon months and years before.  

So now, I will share some of my findings with you. 

If you read this and think of a piece of literature that fits in, post a comment! 

I will begin with "earnest" tomorrow.

Happy Reading!

Frost

The Lord of the Rings

From Modern Hepburn

Yes, I have written a Lord of the Rings post before, but with The Hobbit movie coming out soon, I have to share by favorite fantasy story with you one more time. I could talk about these books for forever, but I will let the simple, yet profound quotes speak for themselves...

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” 

“The world is indeed full of peril and in it there are many dark places.
But still there is much that is fair. And though in all lands, love is now
mingled with grief, it still grows, perhaps, the greater.” 

“War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.” 

“For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”