A Funny Snowman

A Funny Snowman

A funny little snowman

Had a carrot for a nose.

Along came a bunny,

And what do you suppose?

That hungry little bunny

Looking for some lunch

Ate that little snowman's nose,

Nibble, nibble, crunch!

-Jean

What is your most memorable short story or fairy tale?

When I was little, I remember my mother telling me all kinds of stories, some from books and others from her imagination. But the one that I remember most is the story of the Little Red Hen. My mother had once read it to me and it soon became my favorite bed-time story. One Christmas, Santa brought me the Little Red Hen story with the picture-sound buttons. Each time a certain picture appeared on the page, I would push the corresponding button on the side. The dog would say 'woof', the cat would 'meow', but my favorite button was that of the Little Red Hen, who said 'I'll do it myself!'. 

I must have driven my parents half mad with walking around the house pressing that button over and over and over and over and...well, one day the book "disappeared", but the story still stays with me today. It was one of a little hen taking it upon herself to do what needed to be done regardless of who discouraged her. 

Do you think young people today value their education as much as Sara Smolinsky does? Why or Why not?

Looking at the question above, I find it hard to pick one decisive answer for it. I suppose the value of education is relevant to location (a.k.a where you live) and what kind of environment you were raised in (a.k.a family, morals/values, ect...). My personal experience of growing up in an middle to upper-middle class area, near one of the biggest cities in the country, is that education is viewed as important by parents and children alike. Because of this, the students take such education seriously if for no other reason than they will have a harder life should they shun such opportunity. Yet, I don't believe the students around me fully value or appreciate the tremendous advantage our advanced education gives us. 

Compare our lives to that of Sara's as we've seen so far, and even the most oblivious of us can see there is little to no resemblance between her childhood and most of ours. We most likely did not grow up in squalor and filth. We had toothbrushes and towels, running water and enough food to keep us satisfied. We had access to clean drinking water and new clothes and an allowance. We didn't have to work twelve hours a day six days a week in order to keep from starving. So no, looking at the people around me, we don't value such an education quite as much as Sara. That's not to say we take it for granted, but it is not the be-all end-all of our lives.

Yet, look to those who do live in conditions similar to Sara's. For those people, like Sara, education was and is a gateway to a better life and, really, a better world.

"There's nothing hard about writing. All you have to do is sit down and open up a vein." 

--Walter "Red" Smith

My feelings of this quote are mostly one sided. I completely agree with the irony in it, for it shows correctly that writing is, in fact, hard no matter how innately skilled you are with it. Yet on the other hand, I know that many people who have never had to sit down and think and then write and then think and then write some more...in comparison to the obviously difficult jobs out there, they see a career as an author to be easy and laid-back. This is so far off the path of truth that those who believe it are lost in the proverbial forest and stand little chance of being found.

Bread Givers: Class Discussion

Book: Bread Givers

Author: Anzia Yezierska

Chapter: 3-6

Today we discussed our second segment of chapters of the book, Bread Givers. The focus of today was mainly on wealth and on those who have it versus those who don't. After talking about it together, I realized a few things about this book. 

Many of the characters are what I call 'extremes'. They have a personality that can be summed up in two-three lines and everything about that character can be derived from there. Take the characters Jacob Novak and Berel Bernstein, for example. Berel was Bessie's suitor, a man of obvious wealth and horrible attitude. He wore his money 'on his sleeve', brandishing it about for all to see. On the other hand, Jacob is also a wealthy man, but Anzia describes it more as a 'quiet wealth'. He didn't wear gold or boast about the amount of money in his pocket, but one could still tell he was well off simply by the way he carried himself. Though both of these men have money, they are so obviously different. Pulling from my experience from another novel, The Great Gastby, I would divide these two between 'New Money', being Berel, and 'Old Money', being Jacob.

Another thing is that Anzia seems to work very hard at showing the reader exactly who they should like and dislike within the story. The father is, of course, a part of the latter. Perhaps it is because I am female that I find his derogatory comments so frustrating. It was as though I was once again on the elementary school playground, demanding to play basketball because no, I did not have cooties and no, boys were not automatically better than girls. And then there are the sisters, the poor girls who want nothing more than to fall in love with a man with no fear that they could not marry him. These are the main points I have noticed about the novel so far and I look forward to reading more into the story.

Thanksgiving Table Favorites!

Everyone has those favorite dishes that appear on the Thanksgiving Day dinner table. Here are mine!

1. Grandma's spiced mashed potatoes

2. Cranberry sauce

3. Candied yams

4. Stuffing

5. Yellow rice

6. Apple Pie!

7. Cheese Cake!

8. Aunt's biscuits

9. Baked Potatoes

10. TURKEY!