Hannah's English Blog

Response: This isn't a phrase that I say a lot right now, but it's a phrase I made up and love. I come back to it every time I feel the need to. It's "People who spend their lives looking down will never see the sun." By a character in the most recent book I've made. Page 125 to be exact. I believe I am sometimes an optimist, and sometimes a pessimist. When I feel really down under, and that there's nothing farther down, I find that phrase really special and unique. It makes me remember that if I hit rock bottom, the only way to go is up. And that soon I'll see the sun too. Summary: Today in class we worked mostly on vocabulary. We put it in sentences and wrote down the meaning of 15 words. Reflection: I really enjoyed learning new words, in hopes of maybe being able to put it in my books to make it seem more sophisticated.

Response: I have really loved American lit. Especially the creative writing portions. I enjoy writing without too much of a prompt, and I love using my creativity. Something challenging is understanding deeper meanings in poetry. I've struggled a lot with it. I want to work a lot on interpreting stories and writing my own stories. Summary: Today we mostly worked on new poem words. Looking at the word's themes and topics. Reflection: I found it really interesting how simple words can have really special meanings.

Response: I am absolutely terrified of space. I don't know why. I used to want to be an aerospace scientist before I got a phobia of space and bacteria. It's the thought of just an empty void in nothingness really sets me off. I'm really scared about what's in the unknown, and I really hope I don't see it again. Summary: Today, we read a poem in class. It was really fun and entertaining. Reflection: I think the poem was really confusing, but still really meaningful and had a lot of depth to it.

Response: In my church, we all go to Montreat North Carolina for one week. And on the Wednesday of the week that we went, after back home groups, some of us, maybe ten, including our pastor, sat down and had a serious talk. About what we thought, our questions, and our beliefs. One guy, who is now a freshman in college, talked about a specific thing that will not be specified. He gave me a whole new light about it. After that, the girls went back to their house and we ended up talking until 3 am. It can't be anything we can replicate. It was so vulnerable and real that even when I told my sister, I couldn't make her feel what I felt that night. Summary: Today in class we kept working on our hearts. The left side was the mind, and the right was the heart. Reflection: For my heart and mind, I added some quotes that really stood out to me when I watched a certain show and I felt like I had to add it.

Response: My mind wanted to find a lover and have a happy life that my sister has with her boyfriend. But my heart couldn't wrap around it. I fell in love with a boy, but my heart felt nothing toward him. I felt empty with him, and not the jumpy feeling I wished I felt. My mind told me that I was doing it right and that I just needed to swallow the part of my heart that said no. But I couldn't date someone I didn't love. So I left him twice. Summary: Today in class we read a poem about the heart and how heartbreak is in a poem. Reflection: I really enjoyed learning about what people do in a sense of grief in poems.

Response: I doubted myself in a relationship. Me and a guy both liked each other, and it was going really well. But then I started getting scared about the what ifs about a relationship. I ended up ending it two times because I was scared of commitment. We're still friends now, but I wonder what would happen if I came out with a different approach. Maybe we could actually be happy together without me wondering the downfall of everything. Summary: Today in class we read a poem by Emily Dickinson. It was about overthinking and how one's brain can be too much. Reflection: I wasn't in the class very long, but I realized the importance of pacing your mind and not second guessing.

Prompt Response:  I want to go to Japan for a summer trip. I wanna go to all the iconic places like Shibuya, Shinjuku, Yokohama, Osaka, and Tokyo city. My friend said there was the biggest Japanese bookstore in Tokyo, and I really wanna go. I also wanna see what events they have and how they incorporate everything into regular things. I also really wanna try katsudon, mochi, ramen, soba, and udon. I think it would be really cool to go there. Summary: Today in class we listened to each other's presentations and we presented our origin stories. Reflection:  I did think it was interesting about how people interpret the beginning of the world.

Response: The most creative thing I have made was my book. I wrote a book that was roughly 220 pages, and was published on Amazon. I had a really fun time making it, because I put lots of little things about my own life into the story. I enjoyed making the characters too. I felt really confident about the dialogue and the story plot, and it became a favorite among my family and friends. Summary: In class today, we finished our visual posters. Mine isn't as flashy as the examples, but I still find it very meaningful to me. Reflection: I realized that creating posters isn't something I am too passionate about. I like the writing portion way better. Just my opinion.

Response: If I had to choose, two burning questions I have is that if God made us, loving us and wanting us, why did he send down Jesus then, and not now? Many people aren't religious, but it's easy to doubt God. This is important to me, because people are dying left and right and God is just letting it happen. It's unfair and honestly kind of sad. Another question I have is what is actually true about the world? Each story has many holes in it, like how Adam and Eve were the first people, and miraculously more people showed up. It just doesn't add up, and it has been nagging at me for years. Summary: Today we worked on making a visual representation of our origin stories. Unfortunately, I was gone most of the class. Reflection: I really love making my story into something that people can see.

Response: I think my strengths are defining what is in an origin myth, and writing one. I read through the origin myth I wrote, and felt pretty good about it, hoping that I hit all of the marks for it. My weakness, however, is defining origin myth components in  an origin myth that isn't mine. I got a few questions deducted for that error in the quiz today. I think I've grasped a new understanding about how people evaluate the world nowadays and years ago. Summary: Today in class, we did a short quiz about an origin myth. Reflection: I realized I am pretty good at defining what the components of an origin myth are.

Response: Creating my own origin myth helped me understand how people interpret how life was created by showing me how the gods work. Also different stories about love, hate, greed, etc. It gave me a variety of possibilities, leading to the conclusion that they all work in their religions, and their actions all depend on the origin story. Summary: Today I created my own origin story. I made it about the element gods and the story of greed. Reflection: I had a fun time, and had a better understanding about the links to mankind and celestial entities.

Response : I have an orange toy phone. It can be recorded, and people can listen to it. It was sent in a care package by my family to my orphanage in China, so I could hear my adoptive mom's voice when I was little. The story is that that phone was one of the first things about my family that I got so I knew what they sounded like. Of course now, the phone doesn't work anymore and the recording is long gone. But that was one of my first gifts from America, even before I was two years old. I cherish that phone a lot, knowing what the first thing my adoptive mom wanted me to know about, so I could recognize her voice.  Summary : Today we read a Navajo story about the creation of the world. There was a lot of symbolism in the story, such as how North is darker than South, or how the Coyote was symbolizing Satan. Reflection : I am very interested in how the Navajo stories have great symbolism to the Christian stories about creation and destruction.

Response:  When I felt close to nature was when I was in a sunflower field in the summer. It was very pretty and bright, like when someone shines the sun down on me. I saw rabbits running in the fields, and butterflies flying over the flowers. There I felt the nature was content and nice. I felt a breeze carrying me as well. Everything in nature there was untouched by artificial things. It was a meadow of pure nature. I felt connected to the people I love there as well. Summary:  Today we talked about Native American myths and origins of the stories that they tell. Reflection: I learned that Native Americans tell their stories orally instead of writing their stories down.

Response: Three things I want to achieve this year is to learn how to play an instrument, play singles division one or two in tennis, and to get a day job. I love making music, writing lyrics, and songs. But something that I've struggled with is the background music. The instrument I want to learn most is the guitar, so I can play songs I listen to on repeat. And my favorite artist uses the guitar in the songs he makes. When I play tennis, I'm usually in either division one or two doubles, which is a little below average for a player. I want to be able to play at least one singles match, because I work best on the court and off the court alone. And it would really help me with my skill to have that goal in mind. I have a summer job at my pool, but after labor day, it's going to end until next summer. I have gotten a lot of interests recently, and I would like some spending and saving money. I want to try to work at Publix or Chick fil a so I can get money until I can do my ...