Tuesdays With Morrie Pt.II

Prompt-Based on the 6 Tuesdays you have read about in Tuesdays with Morrie, choose which topic (The World, Feeling Sorry For Yourself, Regrets, Death, Family, or Emotions) that has had the most impact on you or inspired you. On your blog discuss the importance of this topic with your own opinions, including textual evidence (direct quotes) from the book.

Since I have started reading 'Tuesdays With Morrie', the most inspirational topic/Tuesday has been 'Feeling Sorry For Yourself. This topic has really had an impact on me in a number of ways. I am a person who tends to feel sorry for myself in many ways. I have two half siblings and a step dad (meaning my parents are divorced). I tend to think that I have a reason to feel sorry for myself since I don't have an 'ideal' life. After reading about Morries experiences it has made me feel sorry for myself less often.

When Morrie found out he had ALS he felt the pain of not only himself but of others as well. He feels sorry for himself but only allows himself to feel sorry for himself for a short amount of time. On page.57, Morrie states "I give myself a good cry if I need it. But then I concentrate on all the good things still in my life." This really impacted him. It made me think about how Morrie had such a terrible thing happen to him and not focus on it. This made me think about how I can allow myself to feel self-pity but also think about how many things are going well for me and how I should appreciate my own life just as Morrie did. 

Tuesdays With Morrie Bucketlist

Prompt-What are your initial reactions to what you have read in Tuesdays with Morrie thus far? One of the main themes developing in Tuesdays with Morrie is not to take your life for granted. Based on this premise, what is on your Bucketlist? You can write a paragraph leading up to a bulleted list of what you would like to do/accomplish in your life.

As of what I've read so far in 'Tuesdays With Morrie', I can say that it is very interesting. This book is about a man named Morrie Schwartz. As Morrie ages he find out that he has ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. This a disease that slowly weakens your nerve endings and will eventually paralyze you. When Morrie is confronted with death he does not get depressed or loses the will to live. In fact, quite the opposite happens. Morrie begins to teach his final lesson as a college professor. This is a lesson about death and what it is like to die. Morrie begins speaking large amounts of knowledge and truths about lives until his death. Morrie is a very positive man who is a natural speaker. I like Morrie because of his figurative ways of delivering life lessons. His vocalizations about life and its lessons are not blunt but do get straight to the point.

One of the main themes of Tuesday's with Morrie is to not take life for granted. Since we are supposed to learn to not take our lives for granted, we are to write a bucket list of 'goals' we want to accomplish/complete before our deaths. Although my goals may be considered childish by some there are actual mature goals that will be mixed in amongst my childish goals. My Bucketlist is as follows:

-Meet Marina And The Diamonds

-Meet Melanie Martinez

-Fight a bear

-Talk to Ghosts! (Preferably the Spooky kind)

-Meet Halsey

-Meet Lana Del Rey

-Visit every state (Even Delaware! And 'The South')

-See Paloma Faith in Concert

-Learn to play nearly every Marina And The Diamonds song on piano

-Own every Teen Suicide Album on cassette and vinyl

-Own every Marina And The Diamonds release (Eps, Lps, Casettes, Boxsets, etc.)

-Move to California with my best friend

-Meet Josh Dun and Tyler Joseph (Twenty Øne Piløts)

-Get my degrees in Music Production and Creative Writing

-Get a record deal with Neon Gold Records, Astralwerks, or Hopeless Records

-Play Warped Tour atleast once (Even if it's the terrible Ernie Ball or Acoustic stages)

-Go to Coachella more than once

-Go to Lollapalooza in Chicago and Brasil

-Learn To Play The Cello

-Meet Clean Bandit

-Have a family

-Have children (Ew I know but babies are cute when you get to dress them up)

-Own my own house

-Move to Camden or London for atleast a year

-Go To Glastonbury Festival

-Be to atleast one kid what Marina and The Diamonds is for me

3rd Quarter Relfection

Prompt-In what area do you think you made your biggest improvements in English Language Arts? 
 What is something you have accomplished this quarter that you are proud of? What has been the most challenging part of 3rd Quarter for you and what did/can you do to help overcome this?

One area that I believe I have had the biggest improvement in was in writing. I think this because when I look at writing pieces from last quarter and beyond, I see a huge positive change. I have gotten better in writing in TIQA format for narrative and informational writing. For example I see a huge positive change in writing informational text. Before this quarter I packed the skill to write informatively and would often include my opinion when not needed. Since learning to to properly write this quarter I have improved very much.

Something that I accomplished this quarter that I am very proud is reading a lot of different kinds of books. Over the last quarter I have read many genres of books. Some include biography, fiction, historical fiction, and cult classics. I am proud of this because when it comes to reading I am very picky in what I want to read. To have read such different kinds of books makes me proud of myself for changing my ways. Related to this I am proud that I chose to read different genres because I finally read 'Valley Of The Dolls', which ended up being my favorite book.

The most challenging part of the 3rd quarter for me was reading my books for Battle Of The Books. This was challenging for me because there have been many other books that I wanted to read/read (Valley Of The Dolls, Renasaince Spook, Lolita etc.) that were distracting me from the books that I needed to read. I overcame this by using two methods. These methods include not touching the free choice books until I read the books that needed to be read and by not looking into the free choice books until I read what was needed.