Poetry #1

1. The poem is “The Laughing Heart” by Charles Bukowski.

2. First, the people that Bukowski lived around were not the richest. It is ironic that Levi’s company would use a man’s poem who could not sell it the product to the people around him.

3. The poem definitely resembles his reputation because of many things. First, is that he lived the life he wanted because it was his life. He was writing for the newspaper and had the FBI keep a file on him. Other adventurous and outgoing things was that he took his family to the United States.

4. For #1 I used Google and typed in the poems words to find the name of him and the title of the poem. For #3 I also used Google to find a biography on his life from the website IMDb.

Essay #1

Matthew Laflin

Dr. Preston

Period 6

8/12/14

Essay 1

Change

The approach to a change in places is the key to whether a person makes the best or worst out of a foreign experience. In the book The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, the main character Nathan Price faces the risky mission that he has created. He takes his family on a mission trip to a foreign third world country from a first world country to live for a year. His approach at arriving in the Congo was wrong from the beginning which affected the entire trip compounding mistakes with mistakes. Although, there were many devastating obstacles to overcome during his endless journey he did find meaning and knowledge in it all.

In the beginning Nathan Price expected to be able to shove his religion down the native peoples throats and have them accept his beliefs. “It's frightening when things you love appear suddenly changed from what you have always known.” Here is a quote from the novel that explains most of the book. The family lived in a new place, their loved ones are split up, and deaths in the family occurred. These things all happened in result to the approach that the father, as the head of the household took when bringing his family on this mission trip. It started from the beginning when they misjudged what to bring to this small remote village. Then, it all escalated from there. When the village took a vote on if Jesus was the villages personal God and they voted no he was confused. All of the family met with the missionary that was there before them and they realized that they had been approaching the situation all wrong. The other missionary was open and general with his religion. He gave the village easy rules to follow and made everything simple. This way the village respected him and he respected the village. However the Price family did not change at all. They went about their life the same way and difficult obstacles were the result of this. The family that lived learned many new things. They learned that you can't go through life your own way or else it will affect others for the worse. For example, in order to live somewhere and be content the person first must respect the people and area they are living in. Another positive idea is to be prepared and know what you are about to get into before you do it.

   Many of the family died and the rest of the family was shaken hard. Because the Price family didn't respect others culture and way of doing things harsh things happened. With all of the deaths, the rest of the family came away with an experience that will forever be locked away in their heart. In life you must learn to be okay with different things. You must be willing to live along people that do things differently.  Doing things differently can have positive and negative aspects, it all depends on how you perceive it.

The Complete Essays of Michel de Montaigne

• The complete essays of Michel Montaigne are personal but are more general thoughts pertaining to life in stead of his life.
• Montaigne lived his life in sixteenth century in France.
• Montaigne's main topics he wrote about were happiness, children's education, repentance, and solitude.
• During his time period there was much religious conviction.
• Michel Montaigne is skeptic towards the after life posing the question "What do I know?"
• Throughout the essays Michel Montaigne refers to a backroom. This backroom is a room where people can escape the front room. The front room is where you meet with people in life and socialize. The back room is suppose to be the back of the house.
• Montaigne wants to be accustomed to death. He doesn't want to be scared or frightened of the future. He wants to take it with ease.
• All his life Montaigne was a Roman Catholic.
• Most of his essays in this book are from Michel de Montaigne's thoughts and nobody elses.
• His essays have no unity or structure in them.
• Montaigne describes the essays as his children to give them a more personal look.
• Most of Montaigne's thoughts and imagination comes from the past.
• Physiognomy is the art of judging human character from facial features.
• According to Montaigne, he believes that there is nothing more unjust than when something wicked becomes lawful.
• Montaigne explains that it is human nature for even facts to be questioned because not everybody who relays information onto another person knows where the truth or story first took place. People keep relaying the information they heard onto other people because it is natural to feed into these so called facts that along the way could have exaggerated a little bit to make what has been told more interesting.
• In the case of Socrates who was an ugly man, he had the most beautiful mind and soul. The saying might no mean a person has to be beautiful to have a beautiful soul it could mean in Socrates case that he was ugly in order to disprove this theory.
• Being beautiful can mean many things. It doesn't always mean from the outside. Because you can be beautiful from the outside and not inside, or both, or beautiful on the inside and not the outside.
• Nobody can make you happy unless a person is happy with themselves first.
• The power of freedom over oneself can be harder to attain but is not unlikely to have, a person just has to be willing to fight it.
• The thought of knowing when a certain thing will happen will make the person tormented on when it will happen.
• People who think about suffering actually feel the suffering because knowing something is going to happen can be a blessing or a curse.
• The point of departure of the essays is negativity.
• Michel de Montaigne sees the human being as weak full of failure.
• The whole time the essays puts out the question of all knowing.
• Often he rejects commonly accepted ideas. This is mainly because he uses skepticism a lot.
• All of his essays are not to be formal or instruct us how to do something with a clear purpose. The don't even sometimes have intentions in the writing.
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• The essays mean "to test" or "to try". In this view his complete essays were written successfully in that he wanted to put a personal note on them with his experiences and life stories.
• Some topics that he uses in the essays include education, happiness, repentance and many more.
• His life stories and experiences had to do with cruelty and the disorder that came with the religious conviction.
• This was when he lived in sixteenth century France.
• He put emphasis on trying to see his subjects from different point of views.
• Part of the reason his works were so good was because he read so many books that just enhanced his knowledge.
• He makes sure to utilize his quotations and put a unique style on everything which is relaxed, but humorous.  One quotation he wrote was that was in the end of the essays under Of Experience “The most beautiful lives, to my mind, are those that conform to the common human pattern.."
• In the eleventh essay the topic is virtue that Montaigne writes about. He explains to the reader that virtue is much more than just being good.
• The reader doesn't have to read very far to realize that Montaigne writes out of respect to the past. Mainly, he centers around Greece and Rome.
• Some skills that Montaigne uses a lot are irony and references to the past.
• A lot of the time when he is writing he has a concern for the readers, but in some other parts he holds a message for the readers.
• During his time Montaigne when writing the Complete Essays was known to have a modern voice in the literary period.
• His purpose is to limit or redirect the traditional activities of the people. These people mainly being intellectual and intelligent people.

Scholarship Applications

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http://www.collegexpress.com/home

Colleges I Might Attend

Westmont College
Air Force Academy
St. Katherines College
Point Loma Nazarene University

Pride and Prejudice Notes

• The story starts out with a rich single man, Charles Bingley, moves to the Netherfield Estate. The neighbors are excited to meet the aspiring man and Mrs. Bennet hopes to marry one of her five daughters to him. 
• Many people are surprised with Bingley's charm and outgoing personality, but displeased with his ignorant landowning aristocrat friend Fitzwilliam Darcy. Bingley and Jane, the oldest of the five Bennet daughters, have a thing together. 
• They're relationship is opposed by the rest of Jane's siblings for various reasons. Soon after Darcy starts to have feelings for Elizabeth even though her family is opposed to any relationship with him. 
• However, Elizabeth has different feelings for him. She likes another young man named George Wickham.Wickham is a good looking officer for the military. 
• George Wickham tells the story of how his dad used to work for Darcy and how Darcy disobeyed his father. This furthered Elizabeth's dislike for Darcy. One day the Bennet family is visited by Mr. Bennet's cousin Mr. Collins. Mr. Collins inherits all of Mr. Bennet's estate after he dies and expects to marry one of the girls. 
• He asks for Elizabeth, but she turns him down quickly. He is surprised, but chooses Elizabeth's friend Charlotte Lucas. 
• Soon around this time Bingley and the entire Nethefield family move to London which surprises Jane. 
• Jane is written to by Caroline Bingley and told that Charles will most likely be set up with Darcy's sister instead of her. Although Jane is easily getting over the issue, her sister Elizabeth is outraged at this outcome. 
• Elizabeth visits Charlotte at her new home. She meets many people including Darcy's aunt, Lady Catherine De Bourgh. 
• Quickly after this Darcy visits his aunt as well with his cousin. His cousin is Colonel Fitzwilliam. One day out of nowhere Darcy proposes to Elizabeth. But she still thought he arranged for the breakup of Jane and Bingley so she refused the proposal. 
• Darcy gives Elizabeth a letter the next day explaining how he did initiate the break up. She was appalled with this news. 
• After a little while at home Elizabeth decided to go on a trip with he aunt and uncle. On the trip they visited Darcy's estate. Here they meet Darcy accidentally and and surprised with how nice he is to them. He introduced them to his sister and invited them over for dinner. 
• Darcy is in love with Elizabeth and soon Elizabeth felt the same. Meanwhile Elizabeth received to letters from her sister Jane saying that Lydia left secretly with Wickham. 
• When they found Lydia, Lydia and Wickham got married. Afterwards Elizabeth found out that Darcy created the twos wedding together. 
• Later, Bingley returned to Netherfield proposed to Jane. Lady Catherine De Bourgh thought that Darcy and Elizabeth were engaged and gave her a harsh talk. 
• Elizabeth explained they were not. Darcy proposed again and Elizabeth happily accepted.

The Poisonwood Bible Notes

• The story is set in 1959 when a family of baptist missionaries travel to the Belgian Congo. Nathan Price, the main character, is the main missionary on their voyage. 
• He took his wife, Orleanna, and his four daughters, Rachel, Leah, Adah, and Ruth May. When they arrive in the Belgian Congo the family is assigned a little town called Kilanga. Upon arrival the family quickly realized they had misjudged what to bring along for supplies. 
• They were unprepared. Out of all four daughters Rachel is the only one that dislikes living in the Congo. One night the town's schoolteacher, Anatole, visits for dinner at the Prices' house and claims that the villages chief is displeased with the church the Price family has built. At this news Nathan becomes angry and asks Anatole to leave. 
• Soon after Ruth May breaks her arm and must be taken to a doctor in Stanleyville. While at the doctor, Underdowns warn the Price family to leave because of elections and independence. However, the Price family stays. 
• Later, Orleanna and Ruth May became sick and were confined to their bed. The three healthy daughter soon realize how difficult it is to run a house. After a month Orleanna is better, but Ruth May is not. 
• The Price family is now struggling to feed themselves in cause of a drought. The chief of the village offers to marry Rachel to make less mouths to feed, but the family doesn't want this. 
• They pretend to engage Rachel to a pilot who lives in the area. Brother Fowles, the missionary before the Prices, visited the village with his wife and Orleanna and her daughters are surprised on his approach with his teachings. It's much more general and nonrestrictive than Nathan's.
•  One night a swarm of ants cover the land and eat up everything. The Price family try to escape. Adah was disabled and sad when her mother chose to save Ruth May over her. The same night Leah lets Anatole know that she is in love with him. 
• One Sunday Tata Ndu interrupts Nathan's sermon and asks for a vote on if Jesus is the village's God or not. Jesus didn't win. The chief decides to have a huge hunt for food. Anatole wants Leah to participate, so the village holds a vote and Leah wins. 
• One of the village people tries to kill Anatole by putting a poisonous snake in his bed, but it fails to kill him. A fight breaks out because of Leah and the chiefs son. 
• A poisonous snake that one of the village people put in the Price's servants bed strikes and kills Ruth May. The footprints show that the witch doctor planted the snake because he has six toes. 
• At the funeral of Ruth May many kids and women show their appreciation and come out. It starts to rain and Nathan baptizes many of the people. They did not realize what he was doing. 
• Orleanna takes her daughters and leaves Kilanga. 
• On the way to the plane in another city, Leah falls ill due to malaria. Orleanna leaves Leah with Anatole and takes Adah to be flown back to the United States. 
• When Leah is well enough to travel she stays with Anatole and have four kids. They then move to Angola. Brother Fowles informs Leah that her father was killed by angry villagers who blamed their childrens death on him. 
• Adah lives in the United States where she becomes a doctor in Atlanta. While in medical school a neurologist helps her with her limp. Then she went to work for the CDC and becomes well known for her discoveries with AIDS and the Ebola virus.