To start off, my first song is Nurses Office by Melanie Martinez. In her musical film, K-12, this song is about wanting to go home. School has always been a struggle for me and I´ve always hated going and usually do anything to get out of it. ¨Take me home, give me that pink slip of permission. This is awful, I´m tired of wishing I was ditching¨ I´ve always hated school cause I´ve always felt stupid or anxious. In the musical, the main character, Crybaby, is being bullied at school, she desperately wants to escape because we find out that K-12 is more of a prison than a school and the students are being brainwashed. That´s how I´ve always felt about school in a sense. She´s the odd one out, from dying her uniform purple to having supernatural abilities.

The next song is California by Lana Del Rey, when I moved, I was so devastated. I could only think of going back. I always wanted to see my friends again. One of my friends, Daisy, I still facetime her like every weekend and we j ujst talk about life and our hilarious childhood. As soon as I can go back out there, I´m gonna hang out with her. My friend Chloe always visited but I never got to see Daisy. ¨If you come back to California, just hit me up. We´ll go where ever you want, travel where ever how far, we´ll hit up all the old places. We´ll have a party. We´ll dance til dawn.¨ I see this song from her perspective. I feel like if we re-united it would be insane to see how much she´s changed in person.

The third song is Better Left Unsaid, by Ariana Grande. My first heart break. I had a crush one someone for 2 years but they had a girlfriend. They broke up and I told them but they rejected me. I was heart broken. I pined after the same person for so long to get no for an answer. We were really good friends and I had thought they liked me back. ¨And I swore that I would never say, I miss you more every day, some things are better left unsaid.¨ I felt the same way after, I should have kept it to myself.

My forth song is ¨happiness is a butterfly¨ by Lana Del Rey. I dated a guy last year who had a lot of personal issues but I still cared which is what this song is about. Something in my brain tells me that even the worst people deserve love but I took it too far that time. I didn´t care though because we were both in bad places, I just pretended I wasn´t. Eventually, he dropped out of school and blocked me on everything with no warning.

My final song choice would be ¨everything i wanted¨ by Billie Eilish. I´ve been pondering my future since I was really young and had the same dream since until I got to highschool and had to be more substansial and logical with my future. I hate conforming and having to get a bolring office job like everyone else. ¨I had a dream I got everything I wanted. Not what you think, and if I´m being honest it might´ve been a nightmare.¨ I want to be extremely successful in the music industry but I´m  afraid it´ll get to my head. Her next line is ¨thought I could fly, so I stepped off the golden.¨ Which is her way of saying she´s wanted to end it all due to her early fame.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

perfect petals punctuate the fabric´s yellow blue

silver platters with strawberries thrown across the room

mid summer wind, sandals on, one summer dress to chose

three girls eyes rolled, loud dust specks lit by afternoon

my life is sweet like lemonade now, there is no bitter fruit

eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, no thought of you

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

In the spring of 1938 my Grandma was born in poland. Around this time World War Two was less than a year away. This may seem unimportant because she was not in Germany but she was Jewish. And thing about that is, the Germans eventually invaded Poland. This forced her family to go into hiding, however, they saw a life for her. They wouldn’t want to raise a baby in an attic full of strangers and a crying baby would give away their hiding spot very easily. They gave her to a catgholic family who was their neighbor before they left Poland. For about 8 years she lived in Italy then in her teens, they moved to Australia.(keep this in mind, it’s important later) 16 years of her life, she didn’t know that these people were not her real family. When the war was over, her parents took a ship to Newyork City where they have our family name engraved on a wall of other survivors.

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.•°•╚✿════๏⊙๏════✿╝•°•.

My Grandma knew she was gonna go into fashion design when she was applying to colleges and her parents had been mailing her foster parents and she found out they were in Newyork City. She applied to Parsons and got accepted. When she moved there, she looked for the address on the letter. She had finally reunited with them. They were so proud of her. She eventually met my Grandpa in Newyork City as well. He was a Med School student.

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╚═════ ∘◦ ミ⛧ ◦∘ ═════╝

I’ve always loved my Grandma for our common interest in fashion. And I always thought it was so cool that she grew up during my favorite fashion time period (50’s/60’s). When I was little I lived in California and she lived in Florida so we didn’t visit often. But one time when I was probably 9 or 10 we visited during the summer. Her house was bought in the 70s and hadn’t really been …remodeled since… It is really cool looking though. 

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┗━━━━━━༻♡༺━━━━━━┛

 Anyways! She had these really pretty flowers that I had never seen before. I asked what flower it was and she told me it was a pyrophate, a plant that can survive fires. It was one of the few plants that survived the austrailian wild fires. 

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┗━━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━━┛

It required all the elements to survive. Earth, Water, Air, and even Fire. It was a symbol of hope; that through all the fires it still survived. She connected that later in life that through everything she had been through, she was still alive.

In John H. Timmerman’s essay, “Tim O’Brien and the Art of the True War Story: Night March and Speaking of Courage,” he states that: “The Vietnam war story is not simply about the rise and fall of nations (South Vietnam, North Vietnam, Laos, China, Thailand, the United States, and Soviet Union).  Rather, it is about the rise and fall of the dreams of individual soldiers—their hopes riddled by disillusionment, their fantasies broken by shrapnel-edged realities” (100).  I have to say that I agree with Timmerman that the Vietnam War was more than just about the war itself.  What the individual soldiers had to go through during the Vietnam War adds to the event.  You can learn all the facts about a certain historical event, but it is not until you hear a story from someone that was actually there that you can truly understand what it was like.

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Timmerman believes that O’Brien’s chapter, “Speaking of Courage,” “poses a fundamental distinction between the fact of what “actually” happened and the reality experience by the individual” (100).  I agree with Timmerman because it is in this chapter that readers can truly see the burden of having to be courageous can have on an individual.  In the chapter, “Speaking of Courage,” in The Things They Carried¸ O’Brien provides readers with a story that shows us the struggle soldiers may have faced postwar.  In “Speaking of Courage,” readers get to experience the postwar story of the character Norman Bowker.  In this chapter readers see that just like Tim O’Brien, Norman struggles with deciding if his actions during the war were courageous or cowardly.  Was he a hero for his actions or a coward?

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For the most part it seems that Norman was quite a courageous soldier while he was serving in Vietnam.  However, it was one particular event, the death of his combat member Kiowa that made him deliberate his actions while in Vietnam.  Norman even states that he felt he was not brave at this particular moment: “well, this one time, this one night out by the river…I wasn’t very brave” (O’Brien 136).  It seems that Norman is struggling with grief and confusion because he knows that he could have been braver and perhaps be able to save his friend’s life.  In a way Norman was courageous because he reacted when he saw Kiowa slipping away in the muck instead of just standing by thinking someone else who save Kiowa.

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 ╚══════*.·:·.✧    ✦    ✧.·:·.*══════╝

As soon as Norman saw Kiowa sinking into the muck he grabbed him by the boot and tried his best to pull him out.  But, as soon as he saw there was no hope and Kiowa was lost, Norman let go of him in order to save himself from sinking deeper into the muck.  Norman thinks he was as brave as he could have been, but even that much bravery was not enough to save Kiowa from slipping away into the muck.

——– ≪ °✾° ≫ ——–

——– ≪ °✾° ≫ ——–

It seems that Norman is struggling with this particular moment because he knows in his heart that he did not freak and he could have saved Kiowa if things had just went his way.  “I didn’t flip out, he would’ve said.  I was cool.  If things had gone right, if it hadn’t been for that smell, I could’ve won the Silver Star” (O’Brien 143).  Norman blames the smell of the muck for getting in the way of his bravery.  If it was not for the smell Norman feels he could have saved Kiowa and earned the Sliver Star.  I find it strange that Norman blames the smell for not being able save his friend.  I mean, if Norman truly was courageous he would have been able to get pass the smell and save Kiowa.  To mean someone who is courageous would do whatever they could in order to succeed.  A courageous solider would have been able to see pass the horrible smell and saved Kiowa.  Perhaps this is why Norman struggles with his bravery at this moment because he too knows that a courageous solider would have not let the horrible smell get in the way of saving a fellow combat. I think Timmerman sums this idea up nicely when he says, “what people would have heard, if only they had listened, was Norman Bowker’s story of how he had courage, of how he almost saved his friends Kiowa, expect for the terrible stink of the shitfield” (108).  Yes, Norman was courageous for acting and trying to save Kiowa, but all anyone is going to listen to is how he was not able to because of the smell.  Norman is going to be viewed as a coward because he let a smell get in the way.  So in the end was Norman a hero or a coward?  I feel it could go either way some may say he was a coward while others may see him as a hero.  I think he was both.  Norman was a hero for trying to save Kiowa but he was also a coward because he let the smell get in the way of his heroic actions.  Because I feel if he was truly courageous he would have been able to get pass the horrible smell and saved Kiowa.

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Chapter Background

A young medic named Mark Fossie didn’t see why he shouldn’t import in his American girlfriend instead. The girl turned up six weeks later on a helicopter delivering supplies. She was blonde and young, wearing a pink sweater and culottes, and her name was Mary Anne. She was mildly flirtatious and all around rather good for morale, says Kiley. Mary Anne was curious about the natives, and about the war. In her first few weeks in Vietnam, she learned how to use a gun, she helped patch up the injured, she stopped wearing makeup, and she arranged a sightseeing trip of sorts to the nearest village. She thought the enemy couldn’t be so bad. “They’re human beings,” she reasoned, “aren’t they? Like everybody else?” (92).

ﾟ*☆*ﾟ ゜ﾟ*☆*ﾟ ゜ﾟ*☆*ﾟ ゜ﾟ*☆*ﾟ

ﾟ*☆*ﾟ ゜ﾟ*☆*ﾟ ゜ﾟ*☆*ﾟ ゜ﾟ*☆*ﾟ

But she quickly got restless and kept staring at the hills. Finally, she disappeared again. Fossie set off to find her and burst into the Green Beret encampment, where he heard Mary Anne singing. There was a terrible stink and the bones of dead Vietnamese soldiers were lying around the tent. There was a leopard skin hanging from the roof. Mary Anne was wearing her culottes and, as Fossie drew closer, he saw that she was wearing a necklace made of human tongues. Mary Anne told her fiancée he didn’t belong in the tent. She said she felt like herself for the first time in her life. She pleaded with Fossie to understand, saying: “it isn’t bad.”

┌─────── ∘°❉°∘ ───────┐

└─────── °∘❉∘° ───────┘

Kiley left Song Tra Bong shortly thereafter. As he tells the story, he says he was partly in love with Mary Anne, and that all of the troops were. He heard about Mary Anne again later from some friends. Her love of Vietnam had only increased — until she finally went off into the mountains by herself. She is still out there, he says, “ready to kill.”

Analysis

They Things They Carried is mostly devoid of women. Women exist only on the margins of the narrative. They are scarcely remembered girlfriends, or they are beloved girlfriends who are only present in photographs. They are distant objects of sexual longing: Japanese or Red Cross nurses, Jane Fonda in a movie. “The Sweetheart of Song Tra Bong” is the only story in which a female character is the protagonist. Even then, the woman’s own sensibility remains a mystery. Her narrative is filtered through a man’s (Rat Kiley’s) retelling.

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The lesson to be drawn from Mary Anne’s story is that the war affects women exactly the same way it does men. Women, too, can be driven mad. In this story, the madness takes the form of a transformation from one familiar literary stock figure to another: the innocent Madonna figure to the sexy seductress. Not only does Mary Anne become a killer, but she also becomes a sexually empowered/liberated.

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╚═══════*.·:·.✧    ✦    ✧.·:·.*═══════╝

In her sexy sweater and innocent pants-skirt combination, no one could seem more innocent, or more American than Mary Anne. In the beginning of the story, she is something recognizable to both the soldiers and the reader: a normal American girl who wants a family. The story of her mutation into something foreign, a killer, mirrors the transformation of all of the soldiers. They go to war as boys and return from war as killers.

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

Before Mary Anne’s transformation in complete, she begins blurring the line of recognizable gender roles. She stops showering, covers her feminine long hair, and stops wearing makeup. She is transformed into a mannish figure and she enjoys the transformation. The soldiers are horrified and titillated by her transformation. Mary Anne may have stopped thinking of herself as a woman, but she does not wholly kill her sexual appeal. Even, or especially, after mutating into something almost unrecognizable, a mixture of the femme fatale and the killer, she remains sexually desirable, even lovable. Riley claims: “We were all in love with her.”

ﾟ*☆*ﾟ ゜ﾟ*☆*ﾟ ゜ﾟ*☆*ﾟ ゜ﾟ*☆*ﾟ

ﾟ*☆*ﾟ ゜ﾟ*☆*ﾟ ゜ﾟ*☆*ﾟ ゜ﾟ*☆*ﾟ

At first when you think of an abbonned house, you assume its a dirty old building. But you have to give it a back story as to why it is abbandoned. Were these people fleeing something terrible? Were they just moving or did they die in that house and no one at the time came around to claim it? As someone who has always been a story teller with a huge imagination, I’ve always loved giving things backgrounds.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

The house I displayed was one that a couple could grow old together in. Probably located in an isolated location in the woods. There are vines growing all over the house and rusted paintings and pictures hung up all around the walls. The walls, once covered in a pink floral wallpaper is now chipped away and has browned over time. Moths fly all around the building lost, looking for a light.

The word “courage” comes from the Latin term “cor,” meaning “heart.” Even though we often assign this virtue to acts of physical fortitude, our mental and moral strength are just as worthy of such praise. Not all bravery is summoned equally. More than any other moral quality, courage tends to evoke feelings of admiration and awe.

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

⊱ ──────ஓ๑♡๑ஓ ────── ⊰

When we talk about brave deeds, it may seem appropriate to do so in a hushed whisper. But it would be a mistake to suppose that all courageous action is heroic action. While many of our favorite models and exemplars of courage are cases of almost unbelievable endurance or bravery in the face of danger, the virtue is as much at home in the cottage as in the castle, in the office as on the battlefield. Our thinking about courage will get off on the wrong foot unless two things are recognized at the outset: that courage can be manifested in quite ordinary circumstances, and that it is a quality that comes in degrees.

≫ ──── ≪•◦ ❈ ◦•≫ ──── ≪

≫ ──── ≪•◦ ❈ ◦•≫ ──── ≪

Praise of courage has been universal in all human societies, though there has been wide cultural variation in the ideals and expectations associated with it. Societies have taken different views on whether courage is an appropriate virtue for all . While it has commonly been accepted that courage involves the mastery of fear, there has been less agreement on the forms that courage should take or the circumstances in which it should be exercised.

┌───────── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ────────┐

└───────── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ────────┘

Edens song “lost//found” provokes the emotion of courage in a unique way by arguing with himself. He makes the choice of aranging the music so its just him singing and his guitar. It doesn’t have a specific beat. He wants the song to connect to the listener by reminding them he is just a person. It is made to calm people, yet, make them ponder about each lyric, maybe to clear their mind from their own anxities. The title is lost//found. He alludes to losing himself and his audience gradually. He expected one outcome and ended up with a different one. He fears fading but he mentions “I won’t lose courage” but he only mentions it once while other lyrics come in a depressing manner. Eden seems to detail himself on a path to darkness, but if he “can help his luck” then he won’t end out in this depressing state that he can see himself in.

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 ╚═══*.·:·.✧    ✦    ✧.·:·.*═══╝

It is hard to imagine what it would be like to be frightened of nothing. For normal human beings, as for other higher animals, feeling fear is as natural as breathing. Most people fear many things, both great and small, and though (if we are lucky) we may never have to face up to our worst nightmares, few of us are unfamiliar with the sweaty palms and parched lips that are typical physical complements to the emotion of fear. Fear is not, of course, a pleasant sensation, and it often obstruct our acting in the ways we think we ought. For those reasons, we might consider that humankind would have been better off if we were literally in a fearless nature.

⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧͙⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧͙⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧͙

⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧͙⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧͙⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧͙

But that would be a big mistake. For frail and vulnerable creatures like ourselves, a disposition to feel fear is a vital evolutionary addition, as it prompts us to take care of ourselves in situations of danger. Those who feared nothing would dare anything, and the consequences would all too often be disastrous. . Fear, it is true, sometimes applies the brakes too sharply to our efforts, but it is better to possess brakes that are occasionally over-effective than to have no brakes at all.

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 ╚═════ஓ๑♡๑ஓ═════╝

We sometimes describe a “fearless” person who has “shown guts” when in a tight spot, but usually we don’t mean that the person was literally fearless but instead that she acted as if she were fearless by forbidding her fears to hold her back from doing what she judged she should. Strictly speaking, in such cases it is not the fear that is absent but its effects.

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While the psychology of courage is complex and multiform, there is unity in courage being manifested in situations of danger and difficulty where feelings of fear, discouragement or lack of confidence would be natural. But simply saying that someone has or lacks courage rarely tells us all we want to know.

❀ ⋆｡˚❃me❀ ⋆｡˚❃

 ｡･:*:･:*:･ ☆ ･:*:･:*:･｡

first thing is i hate capital letters but i should probably use them for this since it’s for an english class. Ok so, my name is Bri and I have a large variety of interests. I’m a singer/song writer, and a fashion designer. I spend a lot of my free time with friends or writing music. My goal after school is to go to a fashion design school in New York City then follow my career path for music and get a record label and producer. If that doesn’t work out I could pursue music. I love writing poetry for my song lyrics, but I consider myself a musician before a writer. I am currently the vocal captain of show choir this year so I have a lot on my plate this year.

❀ ⋆｡˚❃facts❀ ⋆｡˚❃

｡･:*:･:*:･ ☆ ･:*:･:*:･｡

My biggest role model is Lana Del Rey. She’s a singer too and I’m obsessed with how she writes her lyrics like vintage poetry. My favorite T.V. show is American Horror Story. The writing is never bad amd the actors always amaze me by changing from playing a teenager to a serial killer or a married man with a family. I also love the cinematography and how gloomy it is. My favorite season is fall because I love the weather because it reminds me of when I lived in California. I love how the leaves change and how you can wear shorts and a sweater at the same time. I lived in California for a majority of my life. Most of my writing stems from the nostalgia I had from our weekend road trips to pismo beach or sanfransisco. I miss it a lot sometimes and keep it close in my heart.

❀ ⋆｡˚❃interests❀ ⋆｡˚❃

｡･:*:･:*:･ ☆ ･:*:･:*:･｡

If you know me, you know that I’m obsessed with anything vintage or generally unique. I took a fashion history class over the summer and learned a lot about how current events or artists effected the people during that time period. I go to antique stores and thrift stores regualarly with my friends. In the town my grandma lives in, theres an antiwue market every few weekends that I find a lot of treasures from. When I lived in california there was one in sanfransisco that I would find a plethera of crystals at. I strongly believe in crystal healing. My sister and I collect crystals together. One of my favorite activities during summer is to go to the beach and collect beach glass and butterfly wings. I have jars full of beach glass that I’ve been collecting since I was probably 4 years old.

❀ ⋆｡˚❃my friends❀ ⋆｡˚❃

｡･:*:･:*:･ ☆ ･:*:･:*:･｡

I really enjoy nature. My friends and I go to Cedar park almost everytime we hangout and just chill outside. I love my friends so much, they’re the reason I’m still surviving and getting through school. If I was writing a letter to each of my friends it would probably be as long as this is. I’m so glad I’ve met all of them and they always know how to make me laugh and brighten my day.

｡･:*:･:*:･ ☆ ･:*:･:*:･｡

❀ ⋆｡˚❃i am making this blog for my english 3 class. ❀ ⋆｡˚❃ﾟ*☆*ﾟ ゜ﾟ*☆*ﾟ ゜ﾟ*☆*ﾟ ゜ﾟ*☆*ﾟ