The Beast V. The others

10\31\13

Tuesday Write #8

Both the others in Lost, and the beast in the Lord of the Flies are sources of terror .

The others are a hostile tribe that on the Lost island that pose an actual, physical threat to the group. They have proved that they are not afraid to hurt the group by multiple instances of shootings and kidnapping.The beast is an imaginary figure of terror created by one of the little-uns imagination. The beast creates fear and irrational thought for the boys, even though it is fake, until it takes the form of an dead parachuter that looks like a beast in the dark and the wind. The fear in the beast even goes as far as splitting up the group when they have to decide how to deal with it. Both the beast from the Lord of the Flies and the others from Lost terrorize their groups and create rivalries in the groups solely from fear.

All in all, the Beast and the others both represent fear in the eyes of the groups. Even though they both create fear and chaos, the others are the only ones to physically touch the protagonists, and represent much more of a threat.

Soldier X book review.

Mike Humphrey  

10/18/13

Harper English 10

Soldier X book review

Soldier X is a WW2 book by Don Wulffson about a young German boy living in Berlin with a secret Russian background. He grew up in a war torn country,  that is now on the defensive. As the fighting continues he is forced into the army, given a rushed incomplete training, and sent to the worst part of the war, the Eastern front. “From the battlefields, especially those of Russia, maimed and crippled German soldiers returned with blank, dead stares.” (7) During a Russian assault, he is knocked unconscious in his trench, he wakes up under a Stalled Russian tank, and a piece of shrapnel sticking out of his knee. Listening to the sound of Russians executing Germans, he switches uniforms with a dead Russian and crawls from out from under the tank. Shot by a dying German officer, he is rushed off to a Russian field hospital, where he is nursed back to health by a young Russian nurse, they start to fall in love, but she soon begins to grow suspicious of his past. The book has an expert blend of drama, horror and action. It strains the use of detail and description in setting and other surroundings. It submerges the reader into a world torn by war and chaos.The writing style is elegant yet simple, a perfect read for someone who can stomach the gore and slightly depressing storyline. All in all, a great read who wants an action packed read mixed with a bit of history.

Warren Harden blog response

The thing that most stood out to me in the chapter is that the author was able to trick both the characters and the readers into thinking that the senator would make a good leader just because of the way he was described. In the end the author tricked everyone by revealing that he was the worst president in history. One thing that we could learn from this chapter is not to pick a leader by the way that they present them self, or by the way people talk about him. You need to pick a leader by the way he speaks, his ideas, and his ideals or qualities. The IAT test revealed that i have a small preference for people of my own race and gender, it surprised me at first but I realized that people are always drawn slightly to people similar to them.