Mercutio and Me

Out of all the characters, I like and can relate to Mercutio the most.  Romeo is too moody and depressed and always busy chasing around some girl.  Juliet is too young and naiive to do anything exciting or risky.  Mercutio is the guy who resides on the fine line between visionary genious and schizophrenic.  We have only seen him once, but that was my favorite part.  I loved his story about Queen Mab and how he completely disappeared into his tale.  One of his best traits (or possibly his worst) is how he can ignore reality and live in his own, better world. He seems like the outsider of the group, the weird one, which I can relate too.  If everyone let critisisms and problems go that easily, the world would be a lot happier.  This could also be bad when there is a conflict that shouldn't be ignored, but Mercutio would leave it to someone else.

Reading and discussing the text in class has been very helpful.  I can decipher most of the book at home but reading it in class gives me a chance to find deeper things like figurative language, character development and conflict.  I haven't been using any extra resources to help me understand the text.

Message to All!

I think the main theme in Great Expectations that I can relate to is to care for the people that love you.  One group of people that will love you no matter what, is family.  Friends will come and go but your family will always be there for you.  They have seen you through good and bad and suffered through some of the same things as you have.  They aren't afraid to tell you when you are wrong and they help shape you into a better person. They trust you and you trust them.  They will welcome you because they know you would do the same for them.  Families have their ups and downs but ultimately stick together.  Though family is important, having good friendships is also vital.  Friends will listen to your problems, give you advice and stick up for you.  They understand what you are going through and teach you through their mistakes.  You can learn to be a better person by their example.  They can be your role model or show you how not to be a friend by their actions towards you and others.  Even if they were only in your life for short time, they still make an impact on you and are hard to forget.

Thinks on book

I thought the book Great Expectations was one of the most boring books I have ever read.  It almost put me to sleep multiple times and I kindof wanted to kill myself.  I thought the plot wasn't too bad until unrealistic things began to happen such as Molly, Estella and Magwitch were all connected and when Orlick is about to kill Pip, Herbert runs in to save him.  I did sympathize with Pip when Mrs. Joe beat him and Estella dumped him but not when he met Joe and Biddy again and they were awkward.  I did not sympathize with Miss Havisham.  Yes, it is terrible to be left at the altar and I have empathy at that point but when you shut down your whole life because of that, I lose my respect.  Wallowing in your own self pity for decades like Miss Havisham is a sign of weakness and egoistic.  If she was the strong woman she was portrayed to be, she wouln't have looked back on the past and centered her whole life around destroying men.  A fierce, modern woman would move on and not dragged others into her self pity.  Once Molly came into the picture the second time, Jaggers hinted that she had some connection with Compeyson and I started to put together the pieces.  I hadn't really dwelled on any of the other mysteries but I suspected Orlick in the beating of Mrs. Joe.

I read almost the entire book.  There were a few times when I didn't read such as when I decided my other homework was more important and I just went on SparkNotes if I got more than three days behind.  I did read the majority of the book, even if I didn't understand some of it.  My reading habits included reading late at night, while I was doing my nebulizing (for my cough) and in math class when I was done with other work.  I didn't have much of a routine until this last week when I started using the nebulizer and during my night time breathes of the medicine, I would read what I could get done in nine minutes and try to fit in other reading.  It may have affected my comprehension some because I didn't get all the reading in when I was supposed to but some parts just confused me.  Where I completed it? In my room between biology and French.  Did it affect my comprehension?  What's the main charachter's name?  If I didn't understand it, it was because my brain fell asleep while I was reading.