Which 'Tuesday' Has Inspired You?: Week of 2-27-15

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. 


The Fourth Tuesday where they talked about death was definitely most influential on me. Not necessarily because of what he said about dying but because of his quote about sleepwalking. Morrie says "most of us all walk around as if we're sleepwalking." He is basically saying that we don't fully appreciate everything and experience everything we can. This message stuck with me because when I thought about it, I realized how true it was. For me I sometimes live life very routinely, sometimes even planning my day out the day before. I would literally plan; wake up, go to school, do this for this class and this class, go home, get a bit of free time, eat, homework, and take a shower. On a lot of days I just did my work and ignored other things, just going through life in a routine fashion. The problem with this is that I often ignore some things or am to focused on school that I forget to appreciate everything. With that quote I think I will learn to become more appreciative and take advantage of more opportunities. I think as a young person you think that you have all the time in the world. It allows me to sometimes just waste time and go on without really appreciating many of the aspects of my life.

Morrie captures this exact mentality when he says "once you live how to die, you learn how to live." I think its this idea that when you learn you are going to die soon, you begin to appreciate and take advantage of every minute. Thats what I haven't done, I often lay around and do things that have no importance instead of doing something that will help me. When it comes to something like homework I am really bad about wasting time. It often takes me a long time to actually focus in which wastes like an extra 30 minutes. I really want to become more focused on not wasting my time and that quote helped me realize that a little better.

Overall I have taken parts of all of Morrie's lessons. In a lot of ways what he says I feel if I focused a little more I could become a better person. I wanted to share something from Morrie that wasn't from the actual Tuesday meetings but from the Nightline interview. Its two parts, when he says "Accept the past as the past, without denying or discarding it" and "learn to forgive yourself." This for me were things that really stuck because of the way I am. I often dwell on mistakes or past events in which I could have or should have done something different. I often spend too much time and it affects the way I act and often makes me feel a little worse. I think if I can learn from those quotes it would make me feel better overall and could really help me.

Tuesdays With Morrie

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.

Tuesdays With Morrie has been an easy, yet highly enjoyable read. What I really like is the fact that it is a true story, not some fictional character. I'm learning about a real person who really did teach these morals and learn these things. It makes it easier to connect to the story and learn morals from the book. Not only this, but how crazy that Mitch actually ever went back to visit his old professor in the first place. He happened to see him on the TV, which chances are that was really rare and because of that I'm guessing it changes his life. The future is what I'm really looking forward to. In the book, Mitch turns out to be about money and his job. It takes over his life and that is exactly what Morrie had warned his students not to do. I think after Morrie passes away and even while he is still alive that Mitch will change his lifestyle because of Maurie. 


Morrie has been a person, who I find very interesting. The way he carries himself and lives his life is inspiring. Yet I understand some of the concepts that he is telling Mitch. For example when he says that he is lucky and Mitch is confused I understood it the more I thought about it. He is lucky because he knows he is going to die so he gets to decide how he is going to live out his life and picks who he wants to see before he dies. While others who die suddenly or at a young age don't get to see certain people before they die and don't get to say goodbye to all those they care about. Another part I found really intriguing about Morrie was when he cried about people dying across the world. Nowadays we see death on the news and hear about it all the time, yet it is so normal to us that no one really cries unless the person is famous or close to them. When Morrie cried it was odd to me, he didn't know them at all. It really made me think and its still stuck with me. 

This book has really made me think about celebrities and the media. Mitch follows them and reports about them, but I think when he writes about how they do nothing for us it got to me. I mean we idolize all these people and yet they have never done anything for us, and we have never seen them. I mean its crazy the way our society works. The people who do all these things for us everyday, we take for granted. The stars we see on TV we buy shirts of, buy their things, and praise them, even though we've never meet them. They have done nothing for us. This book really for the first time made me think about that to a further extent.

Okay I have never seriously thought about a bucket list or written anything down. To me it seems like something to do when I get older or not really something I have too much interest in. For me I want to get through school and find a career before I plan out crazy things or interesting things I want to do. I mean I'm sure as I get older I'll have more interest and want to do things but right now I don't have too much. Since I have to make a list I guess here it is:

-Go to a Super Bowl (Hopefully the Bears make it)
-Meet Michael Jordan
-Go to a Kendrick Lamar concert
-See the Wall of China
-Start a shoe collection
-Go to college on a scholarship or with help
-Play basketball in college
-Go to Carnival in Brazil
-Coach basketball one day (any level I guess)
-Dunk (especially on someone)
-Zip Line
-Bungie Jumping
-Go on a cruise
-Buy my parents and grammas better houses or improve them
-Sit court side at a bulls game
-Run a marathon

Life Is Beautiful vs. Night: Week of 4/13

Based on the Holocaust literature and poetry we have read, what connections can be made between Life is Beautiful and our reading?  What events, scenes, or situations are similar or different? What is similar or different about the mood or tone of the pieces?

Life is Beautiful and Night both have stories of a father and son connection. In both instances the son is what keeps the father going and fighting for another day. Guido from Life Is Beautiful doesn't show the hard work and pain he has gone through, for the sake of his son, which keeps him strong. In Night the father doesn't hide the fact that he is getting old and taking a beating, but he continues to fight for his son. A large difference that I noticed between their bonds though, was the fact that in Night the relationship doesn't develop until they are separated from the rest of their family and only have each other. While in Life Is Beautiful Guido is already very protective and passionate about his son. For example when the sign on the shop says no Jews allowed, he makes up a lie to his son that you can keep anyone out. While Elie's father in Night wasn't really a big part of his life, he had other importances to deal with. Another difference is the ages of the two sons, one being 13 the other being a young child. Therefore Elie also had to work and struggle among his father, see the realities of the camp. The child in Life is Beautiful has no idea of what is going on because of Guido's ability to make a story and hide his child from reality. Finally the last similarity between the father-son connection is the fact that both fathers die, right before liberation. They both die without their sons knowing of it, but both have to move on.

 The second big connection between both is that it shows their lives before the actual concentration camp itself. Both characters were living relatively happy lives, with passions of their own. Guido's being his passion towards his what would be wife and son. Elie having his whole religion concept. Yet the difference between the two characters is the way they treat their passions once they enter the camps. Elie begins to question god and by the end has completely gone against and forgotten it all. Guido on the other hand is still determined to contact his wife, which is dangerous but he still continues to do it. 

The mood/tone for both stories is completely different. Although both leave you sad in a way at the end, the entire story is completely different in mood/tone. In Life is Beautiful the entire story has humor within it, even when some of the horrid things about the camps are mentioned. While in Night there is no humor, instead a dreadful mood. Guido the entire movie makes up things and games out of everything for his son, but its funny for the audience. Even after his father dies the audience laughs because of the arrival of a tank. Or when Guido jokes about wearing his prison-mates as his clothes. The audience realizes its a terrible thing, yet I feel its taken a bit more lightly because of the way Guido presents it all. On the contrast in Night its a story of the deprivation and painful journey. Since its actually a real story there is no humor, because in the camps no one laughed because of the state of everyone. The book of Night is more precise, therefor there is no added humor. While in Life is Beautiful the humor is added because there is also a story of family. This allows the writer to add humor because its not just a holocaust story. 

I feel like the poem I had "It All Depends at How You Look at It" and Life is Beautiful are actually fairly similar in a few ways. In my poem it started off by saying the Terezin is full of beauty. Not because of what is in it, but because of what it makes us appreciate is the message I understood. In Life is Beautiful when in the camp he made a beautiful story because of the way he was able to keep his son safe and innocent, not because of the camp. Secondly in my poem the fact that the entire world is unfair makes the author and those in the camp feel a bit better. In the movie it is Guido's son that makes him feel better and continue to fight on. 

How is life shown as beautiful throughout the film. Pull out at least two examples from different parts of the film and explain your rationale.

I felt in watching the film a second time, that there are instances throughout the entire movie where life in some way is beautiful. The way I saw life as beautiful was Guido's passion towards his wife and son. It's beautiful the troubles he goes through for his family and how much he risks to protect them. For example at the beginning when he shows up as the inspector its the start of a true passion. They are both always happy to see one another and Guido is determined to see her. I think you really see life is beautiful in the instance where she goes under the table and tells him to take her away. You see how happy he makes her and that she is willing to give up everything else. It shows how they felt about each other and that everything would be good when they were together. Finally I want to go to the end of the movie. We all know about how Guido protected his son throughout their time in the camp but the end really shows it all. Although Guido dies his son didn't bear any terrible, scarring memories from the camp and he is reunited with his mother. It shows that Guido did complete his goal and that life is beautiful because his son and wife are safe, which he would have been happy about.

Night: Week of March 30

Focus Question: How do Elie's experiences during the Holocaust change him as a person?

Elie Wiesel changes drastically during his time at home, to when he is being liberated from his last concentration camp. The two aspects in which I thought you saw clear progression throughout the whole book were in his belief/practices of religion and his relationship with his father. To start the book, in his town he is obsessed with his religion, wanting it to be the main part of his life. On page 1 he "asked my(his) father to find me(him) a master to guide me in my studies of the cabbala." His father responded in telling him that he was too young for that. Clearly he was so obsessed that he was going beyond what was usual for his age, because he wanted to learn more. When he has been moved to Auschwitz you can see that he begins to question god but isn't really fully swung into not believing or having hope. Elie says "I did not deny God's existence, but I doubted His absolute justice." The key word in this sentence is doubted, because doubted doesn't mean denying, but it means that there is a feeling of uncertainty. At this point there is still some belief that god is good, but he is really beginning to question it all. Then I think it is when they are at Buna in which they witness hangings. Then it was either on New Year when Elie says "As I swallowed my bowl of soup, I saw in the gesture an act of rebellion and protest against Him." At the beginning of the book he praises god and wants to know all about his religion, while the concentration camps have driven him to not only question God's justice but rebel against him in a way. When the time of his liberation has come, his father is no longer with him. His only will, was to eat, and he no longer mentions god. I think his father was what kept him going mentally and the fact that he was gone, caused him to not really think about anything anymore. His family was dead so in a way there was no point in living for Elie anymore. At the beginning Elie is obsessed with religion and god. Then as the book progresses he questions and goes against go because of his silence, in allowing all this to happen. Yet by the end of the book he no longer speaks of god, because he has nothing left.


Also having to do with his father, is the way their relationship develops throughout the book. At the beginning of the story he and his father are distant, his father is more concerned with the community and doesn't pay all that much attention to his son. AT the beginning when he is describing his father, he says "He was more concerned with others than his own family." Then when they are actually sent to the concentration camp everything changes. There is no longer a community, but I think what brought them together the most, was that they were separated from the rest of their family at arrival. When they are transported to Buna, Elie has the opportunity to go to a better working area. He responds in saying "I certainly do. But on one condition: I want to stay with my father." Just a week or so earlier, he and his father were hardly together, yet now thats what mattered. I feel as though in this instance, had the person said no, that only Elie could go, Elie would have turned it down to stay with his father. Later on his father was selected to be killed but after better inspection he was not killed. Before he was sent to better inspection he gave his son, some valuable items at the time, showing that they were looking out for one another no matter what. You see their relationship really develop. They talk more and every decision is based off of one another's best interest. Then after they are leaving their last real concentration camp, where his father was alive, you see how much they mean to each other. Elie says "My father's presence was the only thing that stopped me... I had no right to let myself die." At this point either of them would have given up, had it not been for the other person. They are basically living for one another, not because of God or hope, but for each other. When his father dies, Elie no longer really shows any sense of emotion. He isn't physically dead, yet you feel as though mentally he has died. He has nothing left. Throughout the book when Elie even thinks about leaving his father he immediately feels ashamed, which shows their bond. There are other foils of their relationship that really bring out how special they are to one another. One is when Rabbi Eliahou comes looking for his son. Elie knows that his son left him on purpose to lose the burden of worrying about his father, but doesn't say anything. Then there is an extreme instance in which a son kills his father over a piece of bread. These instances really show how strong Elie and his father were and the bond that they had.

"It All Depends on How You Look at It" by Miroslav Kosek Butterfly Project

Comments: Nadrian, Gabe, Jesus, Elenia

Night: Week of 3-23-15

Title: Night
Author: Elie Wiesel
Pages Read:0-43
Prompt: How do the characters change throughout the events in the book?

I am really enjoying Night because it is my first read that gives a detailed description of real events that occurred to a person just a few years older than me. The events and dialogue in the book shake me up that they actually witnessed this and that these things were actually said. At first you see the religious affect and the affect hope has on the community in which Wiesel lives in. You can tell that religion plays a large affect because they prey and are tied together because of their religion. Especially since Wiesel talks about it so much at the beginning of the book. When there begins to be suspicion of Germany coming the entire community doubts against it because they don't want to believe that their lives could possibly be in danger. This hope and doubt may have driven them all to be put into captivity and most likely death for most of them. So Wiesel has this same mindset as the community. Then all of a sudden the Germans show up and at first Wiesel believes the rumor that it will all be over soon.

Once they realize they are being deported the mood takes a sudden swing. All of a sudden you see panic begin to creep in, yet they always stay hopeful. There is a cycle where they are a bit frightened then they settle down, like they did when they are sent to the smaller ghetto near them. Yet once they settle they are being deported, except this time they wouldn't settle down and establish the same hope anymore. You see once they are taking the train to Birkenau it no longer is much of a community, but instead every man for themselves. You see the mindset of everyone change to thinking of themselves and not worrying about much of anyone else, except their family. Then you really see how Wiesel changes mentally once you arrive at the first camp, Birkenau. The largest event that changes Wiesel is seeing the furnaces and all the people that have been killed. He is extremely shaken and begins to have this "me" type of mindset and he grows farther from his father and forgets a bit about his mother and sister. The first event where you see his change is when his father is hit to the ground by an officer at the camp. He does absolutely nothing about it and thinks to himself why he had not reacted and that just a few days ago he would have attacked that officer, wondering how much his recent experiences had changed him. I believe it shows how far and how much fear can influence and change a person. The fear of dying and fear of what he had seen had driven him to change his morals in the time span of just a day or few.

To me one of the largest changes is the way Wiesel looks at religion and god. At first he asks questions but preys and believes everything he is told. Yet after these events he responds the same way I believe I would. I would have also questioned that god has completely good and all love because after such inhumane and terrible scenes, how could god have approved or allowed this to happen. In fact Wiesel does not prey and he begins to grow angry in a way. For me I am very interested in seeing what other characters that Wiesel will come into contact with. I have a feeling that Wiesel and his father are bound to be separated soon and that everything will change at that moment. I really want to keep reading because I think from here things will only get worse and more crazy so I want to see how Wiesel handles the adversity that is coming and how he manages to survive everything he is about to experience.

Holocaust AoW's Reflection Blog

Today we learned about different experiences and new things learned about the concentration camps. I learned a few really, horrific, insane facts. One was from Bella, about Joseph Mengle, who killed 400,000 people including babies. Not only that be he kept the eyes of those who he killed, which I found extremely disgusting. Another crazy fact was in Jenna's article where she spoke about the findings of new ghettos and camps. In the article it said that researchers found over 42, 500 camps and ghettos in which 15 to 20 million people died in. This affected the death toll that had already been counted and I was astonished at such large numbers of camps and people. Gabe had a fact that I never had really thought, or heard about. Survivors would die after liberation because their stomachs were too weak to digest any food. It must have been so tragic to be or see someone be free, just to die a little later. Finally Abdiel had a story of a survivor and when he told me how many relatives they had lost, I couldn't believe it. One person had lost 49 relatives, thats more than I have in my entire family, and this person had to live with the fact that 49 of his family members perished in such a terrible event.

The largest topic this week was definitely survivor stories, their experiences at the camps, and what has resulted from it. There were many similar story lines, terrible experiences at the camps, lasting effects, and/or the telling of their stories to teach and so that others can learn. Amelia, Jesus, and Abdiel all I think had similar articles. They all had people whose experiences were so traumatizing, they would not speak to anyone about it for up to 60 years. Now in Leanna's article the person who survived had a different way of going about it after they were liberated. This woman had cheated death, since she had escaped a gas chamber and survived three concentration camps. She instead spends time telling her stories for "those who can't" and uses it as a message to love one another and to prevent bullying of other races or religions. Speaking of lasting affects, both Autumn and and Stanley had a very interesting article about how descendants of Holocaust survivors have altered stress hormones. That it causes anxiety and stress plus does not allow you to bounce back from something tragic. I found this so intriguing and I wonder how many generations this can go for. I wonder if any other events have affected like the genetics passed on from one generation to another. This week I feel like was essential to learning more about the Holocaust and I learned some things I wouldn't have.