The Picture of Dorian Grey

How Dorian Gray looked in
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

I have recently started reading, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilder. How I came to the decision to start reading in is some what abnormal. One of my all time favorite movies is the league of extraordinary gentlemen. This movie was put together by taking famous 19th and 20th century book characters, including Tom Sawyer from the novel Tom Sawyer, Allan Quartermain King Solomon's mines, and from my book Dorian Gray.

The takes place in England, and starts out with Basil Hallward a painter and Lord Henry Wotton siting in Hallward's art studio. as they talk Basil is busy looking at a painting of what you later find out is the beautiful Dorian Grey. Wilder seems to be leading the reader to believe that Basil has fallen in love with Gray. As they talk Basil describes how he met Dorian at a party and has quickly become obsessed about him.

The author describes this when he speaks through Basil and says, ""He is all my art to me now," said the painter gravely..."What the invention of oil-painting was to the Venetians, the face of Antinous was to late Greek sculpture, and the face of Dorian Gray will some day be to me." This quote not only describes the story but starts to show Wilder's writing style.

The book is a very vibrant read with amazingly descriptive writing. Every sentence is a picture made of words (see what I did there). even in the unneeded transition sentences amazing descriptions are provided, "Lord Henry elevated his eyebrows and looked at him in amazement through the thin blue wreaths of smoke that curled up in such fanciful whorls from his heavy, opium-tainted cigarette." In this short quote there is so much description, and imagery.

This story will draw any reader in with its amazing use of words, like the deep blue eyes of Dorian Gray have drawn in Basil Hallward.

Dorian Gray is probably not quite as
beautiful as this pug

success or failure: The effects of dropping out of school

I've been thinking over the past couple of weeks about people i could interview about my possible high school drop out project. I had already planned to interview my grandmother about her father seeing as he is now deceased, but I wasn't sure who I would use for my second individual. I recently had a friend drop out and realized I could analyze dropping out in a life lived, and a life waiting to be lived perspective.

With this I will also be able to look at dropping out of school on a generation. I will hopefully be able to interview them here over the next couple days. I realize not all people drop out for the same reasons, and that dropping out doesn't mean that you can't do anything with your life; after all my great-grandfather was a multimillionaire despite never finishing the 8th grade.

There are many studies that different organizations and colleges have done on the affects of dropping out that will provide a lot of great information for my paper. I am personally interested in all of this information because these are the stories of some of the greatest fighters in our community. Despite what most people would view as all the odds stacked against them, many of them succeed. It is also important to recognize the reasons why people drop out and see if we can change the system to help those kids.

Multi-Genre project:Dropouts

Pug for President

I think I am going to do my Multi-Genre project on high school dropouts. I will be able to analyze them by both the many cases of success and yet at the same time many cases of failure. I got the idea when thinking about my great Grandfather, who dropped out of school after the eighth grade and by the end of his life was worth over four million dollars. The essay " Two" by Brittany McNary also gave me the idea, because of the way she analyzed one persons story, as well as twins in general. I think it will be interesting to compare and contrast the successful, and not so successful high school dropouts, and see how they differ.

A Millennium Goal: Teach a Man to Fish

I don't need a reason for this photo

The UN Millennium goals are some standards I have always found very interesting. The problems they address are quite simply impossible to solve. World hunger will never be stopped, individuals will always be under educated, and there will always be diseases threatening to wipe us out. Now don't mistake me for a pessimist, I'm a realist. That being said that doesn't mean we shouldn't try, after all I've been wrong before.

 All of this being understood their is one particular millennium goal that I thought might actually be able to be achieved: Global Partnership for Development. In particular target 8.B "Address the special needs of least developed countries". 

The reason I support this goal so much is because it is the foundation for solving for all of the other problems in this world. By developing other countries economically, then individuals find jobs. When individuals find jobs they can feed their families, and send their kids to school. When kids go to school they learn to respect others no matter what their religion, race, or gender, as well as learning to respect the planet. when kids graduate from school they learn how to cure diseases and save lives. 

I could go on all day about the amazing effects economic advancement can have on the world, but I find I can easily sum it up in one sentence. Economic independence allows for individuals to decide their own fate. For me it all goes back to the saying, "Give a man a fish feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for a life time."

We should aim to help others find their own way, not just provide everything to survive. providing these goods is nice but in many ways it acts as a crutch. I don't believe people want to just survive, I believe everyone wants to thrive.

really makes you think doesn't it

A little good in the world

The first Do Good winner I read about was Art to Aid. This candidate has a very interesting cause in the fact that it does not have one direct cause. Art to Aid works some what like an eBay or craigslist that connects artist with a cause and consumers who are willing to donate. the purchasing of the art is then donated to where ever the artist wish it to go. What I think is truly amazing and unique is that this organizations is not focused on just helping one group of people, but in fact everyone. if you have any skill at creating things, or if you have a love for art you can create or purchase an item to help people in need.

The second group I read about was the Dreamers Orchestra. This is an Orchestra made up of homeless individuals. The Dreamers Orchestra caught my eye because I'm in the Parkview Orchestra. This is an amazing organization simply because there are so many homeless individuals who have tons of talent that is being wasted. This Group now allows them to use this talent to help stabilize their life.

The final group I read about was TOHL. This is the only organization in the world that creates mobile infrastructure. Mobile infrastructure can be used to provide disaster regions with water is relatively no time. I do not exactly know why I chose this organization to read about, the only real reason is that TOHL sounded familiar. I soon realized I was thinking of a different organization, but I was still glad I found this one. TOHL is embarking on a journey and challenging the limits people have put in front of them. This organization I believe will have thee strongest impact on the world, of the three I have highlighted here.

To further show how amazing Pugs are here is Robin Williams with his!
Pugs should be invested in because they help fight depression!

Article 1 response

to prevent stress while doing grammar it is always important to find your happy place.

This article about grammar reminded me of how much I hate English. There are so many "rules" that are not certain, and continuously confuse me. The article went over seven main grammar problems the author sees in modern writing. 

The first one about subjunctives was relatively easy to understand. The article described how if the situation is a non-true statement then were should be used, but in any other situation was should be used. 

The next common grammatical mistake was bad parallelism. I can see what the author means, but I do not see how it's important. The Author provides the example problem "My friend made salsa, guacamole, and brought chips." He states this is wrong because, "If you start out by having made cover the first two items, it has to cover subsequent ones as well." He then finishes by noting, "To fix, you usually have to do just a little rewriting. Thus, My friend made salsa and guacamole and brought chips to go with them." I can see where the error exist, but I feel like the "to go with them" should be implied.

The next problem the author describes is one I continuously struggle with: verbs (notice I used the colon correctly). The author himself points out how confusing these can be when he provides two different examples, one using lay and one using lie, "I'm tired, so I need to go lay lie down. The fish laid lay on the counter, fileted and ready to broil." This shows no consistency within grammar and furthers my belief that the differences do not matter. 

The fourth rule is regarding pronouns such as me, myself, and I. I already fully understood this section before reading it, so I did not have to worry about it very much.

The next section was probably the most confusing for me. The author describes dangling conversations and I had some trouble following his description of the problem, as well as how to fix it. He essentially summed up the problem and solution with the statement, "First, recognize sentences that have this structure: MODIFIER-COMMA-SUBJECT-VERB. Then change the order to: SUBJECT-COMMA-MODIFIER-COMMA-VERB." In this section he might as well have been speaking gibberish to me.

The sixth section on semicolons I found to be quite useful. I have never fully understood them, but with the authors description I now feel much more secure using them.

At last the final section was about words and word choice. This entire section described word choice as depending on the time and place of its use. This section made me laugh and exemplified grammar for me. It essentially said grammar is whatever the teacher feels like it should be.

Me reading all of these "rules"

We built that presintation response

I listened and watched the PechaKucha presentation called, ‘We Made That’. The presenter had some very interesting photos and a great understanding of her topic. She was very good at explaining the effects of their program on the local community. The presenter could help herself by practicing public speaking. She had several moments were it was quite clear she had lost her train of thought, or got off track.

The presentation as a whole seemed a little unorganized. I wasn’t sure what exactly the purpose of it was. It was interesting and informative, but the speaker never really noted why what she was doing was important. I feel like that is an important idea that should always be explained when presenting.

I like big presentations and I cannot lie