Journal #14

My day as Ben Franklin's apprentice would consist of many many things. We would probably do some brain exercises. Maybe he would have me do some crosswords or some sodoku puzzles? Just kidding probably not, I do not think that either one of those were invented in that time. Actually maybe he would have me do some of those magic nine squares that he invented. We learned those in like eighth grade with Mrs. Bryan. Or Maybe Ben Franklin is a bit of a mean guy and if I was his apprentice he would treat me as a lesser being and make me more like his assistant and have me do all of his little errands. I would maybe have to make his coffee from scratch. I would have to go outside and find some coffee beans in the ground or where ever you find coffee beans and get them and bring them inside, then I would have to go to a garage somewhere and find a hammer and bring it back inside and smash all of the coffee beans until they were some powder or whatever they do when you smash or grind them. And then I think you have to mix the powder with water that is hot? That is just a guess actually because I have never made nor drank coffee in my whole entire life, because it tasted like puke. It is god awful. But hey maybe Ben Franklin liked coffee. I really do not know but it is just a guess because he was a smart man and smart people like coffee maybe. I do not even know what a day as Ben Franklin's apprentice would consist of because that was a very long time ago and I was not alive obviously during that time so...I am not a huge fan of this here blog topic because it is something that is really hard to write about, especially three hundred and twenty five words. But i am actually almost there so I will now go count my words and hopefully I have enough...

Journal #13 American Dream

I think that the American Dream today is very different from all the other decades. Our American dream is to be successfull, and to be successful today is to make money. People are always wanting more and more, more money to buy more clothes, to buy a bigger house, to have more cars. It is always more. The American Dream has become very materialistic. In the decades prior I think the American Dream had to do with having a good family and having your kids be able to grow up and follow in your foot steps. It was more about things like love, and family, and how good of a person you were. It was not just about things and money. I do not totally agree with what our society has become and that we are so materialistic, but I know that I want to make a lot of money and that I want to be succesfull. I started working not even a week after I turned sixteen because I was I guess eager to start the American Dream...I want to have my own money so that I can buy my own things. It is just a lot better to have more financial stability and knowing that you have money to go out and do what you want to on the weekens and know you have money to buy those new jeans you wanted. It is actually pretty sad that our society is so wrapped up in what people think and the matarial things that in the grand scheme of things do not matter the least bit. Things like family are love and having your children succeed are more important. People want to be the best and right now to be the best it takes money and having the best things not just having a good family in being happy. At the end of the day though money is not what is important...having a family that loves you or even a dog that loves you is more important than money. People need to focus more on the important things in life not just the material ones.

Reflection- Franklin vs. other Puritan writers

Ben Franklin as an author in comparison to the puritan writers we ahve looked at are very different. From their writing style to even what they write about it different. However, even some puritan writers vary compared to other puritan writers. Ben Franklin in my opinion was not a puritan writer. I enjoyed the autobiography of Ben Fraklin more than I enjoyed the other stories and things we have read this far because I think that Ben Franklin was a very intelligent man. I also think he was a good person. He has a very different writing style that is even a little bit weird compared to the other writers. Because is is so different it makes him stand out as a writer.

The biggest difference between Franklin's autobigraphy and the works we read prior by the puritans is that Franklin's autobiography lacks the presense of God in the writing. All of the previous Puritan writers were all about God. Ben Franklin was not a puritan though, so I understand why he would not be writing about God. The Puritan's life revolved completely around god, and everything that they did or said was for him. When life was bad, God was still praised. I do agree that we should praise god in both good and bad times, but they were a bit over the top obcessed with him. In Anne Bradstreet's Upon the Burning of our House, her house burnt down and she still praised god finding the silver lining in the situation. SHe was not the strongest Puritan of all the one's that we read, but she was stil praising god in the worst of the worst(Bradstreet 91). Mary Rowlandson was being held captive by the Indians and all she could think about was the positives and how being captures would turn out a good way in the end. God was doing it to her for a reason, and she was okay with it and just thanking him like being captured was normal. She knew God would never put her through anything that she was not able to handle(Rowlandson 83). Through reading the autobiography , we find that he did have some struggles in his life, but hey who doesn't? But he did not necessarily praise god for his hardships like both Mary and Anne did(Franklin 108).

Another difference between Ben Franklin and Puritan writers is the actual physical way they wrote. Puritans did not use the descriptive talk that Ben Franklin used. They just sort of got straight to the point unless it was about god. They could go on forever about how awesome he was. Franklin did kind of do a little bit too much describing about some things and he should of just got straight to the point. When he was talking about his stay with the nice lady, he went on and on and on about how nice she was and just kept describing about what she gave him (Franklin 107). I am not saying that describing is bad, but sometimes it is just a little boring to the reader because you just want to know what happened already!

Journal #12

If I could make up my own rules about right and wrong I would change a bunch of the rules at our school, Pleasant Plains High School. This year we have a bunch of new rules that I think are stupid and do not work well with what I agree with. I think it is right to have homeroom and give students a time to talk to everyone and a time to relax. Instead we have stupid pace, where we can not even talk and we are forced to sit there in silence. It is really really dumb. It does not benefit smart people at all, if I have to get help with homework I can not even talk to anyone because Mr. Tadla just gets really mad and will not let us talk. It is inhumane to make us sit in Pace for forty minutes each day in silence, because quite frankly I never really get anything done because I am just too focused on the fact that it is wrong to make us sit there. If i could also make rules about right and wrong, i would ban animal testing because I think it is cruel to do that to the poor little puppies. They are so cute and they never did anything wrong. Also, I would not allow people who committed awful crimes to appeal their sentencing so that we have murderers and awful people on the street. ALso, if you are a celebrity and you commit a crime you should get the same punishment and sentencing as a normal person. I do not understand why they get special treatment just because they are famous. Crime committers and murderers deserve to have punishment and stay in prison. It is just how it should be. I really just do not school, but I would not make a rule against it because we need to go to school to get somewhere in life. However, I would just make sure there is no pace.

Journal #11 - Aphorism

Someone once said, "You are only young once...but you can be immature your whole life." I completely agree with this aphorism. This aphorism really makes me think of my mom. My mom is obviously not a child, if she is mother. She is actually old. Well not old, but older than me. However, she acts as if she is a child a lot. My mom is actually pretty cool. She is always doing things like a kid. She rides on shopping carts in the grocery store, makes extremely immature jokes about child like things such as farts or poop. She is actually really immature, and I think she will be like that the rest of her life. My mom is also really happy. I think she is probably pretty happy because she does not take life too seriously because she is always acting like she is a child. Because my mom is happy and immature she may sometimes get herself into trouble. When her and my father Jackie Kieth, who is far from immature and childish, fight she sometimes gets herself into more trouble because my dad will say something trying to be serious and make a point, and then my mom will just laugh because she thinks of it as a five year old. My dad eventually gets over it and they do not fight anymore. I hope that when I am older I can act somewhat like my mom and have fun with my kids and be immature, only when it is the right time, and just live life more carefree. We should not take life too seriously...it is only life and everyone is going to have the same outcome anyway... I love my mom a lot and I am happy that even though she is old, that she is still fun and immature sometimes. She is also a really good mom, and I hope my kids love me just as much as I love her today.

Reflection Thomas Paine

The writing, The Crisis No. 1, by Thomas Paine to me was definitley a piece from the rationalism period. Just by reading the very begenning, you could tell that Paine was a rationalist. He uses reason and thought to prove his points, as compared to the puritan writing style before where a lot of emotion was used. I think that the Rationalistic writing style is much better at pursueding people and getting points across because if the reader is reading facts and reason, their mind is not left alone to think about the decision and use their emotions. Like I said, from the very begenning you can tell it is a rationalistic piece. In the very pfirst paragraph in the exerpt from the book. Thomas Paine says, "Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, had declared that she has a right (not only to tax) but "to bind us in all cases whatsoever"; and if being bound in that manner is not slavery, then there is not such a thing as slavery upon Earth" (Paine 134). This quote shows that Paine was really into getting people fired up and wanting them to stand up for what they believe in in the British Colonies. He makes it ver clear that he thinks the British Government is taking over everything and overstepping their boundaries into people's lives. I think that Paine was adressing this piece to people in the military. If you read the before you Read Section (132), it says that Thomas Paines's letter the Crisis, was to be rad at all the military camgrounds. This just makes me think he was targetting all the military people because it is obvious that people in the military show true passion for their country if they are willing to die for it, then they are most likely willing to stand up for what their country believes in.

Thomas Paine also says in the exerpt, Thomas Paine said in the excerpt, “We did not make a proper use of last winter… and the fault is all our own” (Paine 135). I think that this quote really shows the Rationalistic thinking of Thomas Paine because rationalism was a time of reasoning and deeper thought, not just emotions. Thomas Paine had obviously thought through peeople sitting around and not accomplishing a lot during the winter. I can tell he was using a rationalistic thought process because he was thinking logically when thinking that things were actually our fault. I think that by telling people they have not accompished a lot, then hopefully they will be fired up and ready to prove you wrong and do something about what they should of already been doing. That is definitley how my brain works, when somebody tells me that I can't, it makes me want to show them that I most definitley can. He just wants to get them a little stirred up about how they are being treated from the government overseas so then hopefully, they will finally do something about it.

Paine, Thomas. "from The Crisis, No.1." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 134-136. Print.

"Before you Read: From The Crisis, No. 1." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 132. Print.