Saturn

Here's an essay I wrote about Saturn for one of my classes. I thought it was pretty good writing, and Saturn is one of my favorite planets. One day, it would awesome to travel into space...but maybe that's just me.

My magazine article (Wonder Worlds) is all about Saturn’s surprising moons that are revolutionizing the search for life beyond Earth. It’s all about a researching group called Cassini, funded by NASA in exploring Saturn and all its moons. So far, 61 of Saturn’s moons have been discovered. Cassini has also discovered that two of Saturn’s moons are spewing water vapor and ice into space. Could these moons possibly support life? Could there be aliens somewhere on one of Saturn’s moons? This is what Cassini, NASA and many other scientists are researching and trying to figure out.

In 2005 while exploring the Saturn system, the Cassini spacecraft discovered that Enceladus and Cryovolcanoes (two of Saturn’s moons) were shooting jets of water vapor and ice into space. They believe that these two substances may have come from an underground water source. They also discovered that the debris contained ammonia, which is a “potent antifreeze” that could keep water in a liquid state even at the deep-freeze temperatures measured on the moons. That could mean that these moons could have a chance of supporting life –aliens, perhaps. The Cassini has also explored another one of Saturn’s moons – the Titan, and in 2005 when they released a probe to explore the moon, it revealed muddy, Earth-like river channels and a pebble-strewn surface. Even after all their wearisome adventures, the Cassini is also planning on exploring two more of Saturn’s moons, Dione and Lapetus, which may also be emitting gases from their surfaces, and have underground water systems.

In my personal opinion, I think that it is very possible that there may be other life on Saturn, or one of its moons. This article has a lot of logical information, and I also have had interest in extra-terrestrials in the past. On several occasions I have researched pictures and alien sightings just for fun. I have found all sorts of pictures that really got me thinking. With the rise of technology I believe that we will one day find a way to prove our theory of aliens. I have always believed that there were aliens somewhere out there, even before I read this intriguing article.

This article was written by real scientists with real equipment and knowledge. Even besides these scientists, there are hundreds of others researching these kinds of things. I’m pretty confident that all the discoveries and theories these scientists have researched are somewhere close to true. “It was striking how familiar those images were for such an alien place,” said Scientist, Elizabeth Turtle. There have been thousands of sightings, and scientists have been constantly exploring planet after planet and moons. I am aware that there is no certain proof, but there has been enough evidence that I can safely say that I believe extra-terrestrials exist.

In conclusion, this article was very intriguing and interesting to read. I am actually very glad I had the chance to read it. It gave me a new perspective on several things, including where aliens may be found. I have also learned a lot about Saturn and its moons. I never knew that Saturn had 61 moons (maybe more), and that they may be a place that is able to support life! Hopefully in the future more articles about this subject will come up, and I will be able to learn even more about what these amazing scientists are researching each day.

SPANISH!

As some of you may know, I am taking a Spanish 3 class this year with Profa Turneau. Although it's not my best subject, I like spanish, and here are some examples of spanish paragraphs and their translations. There arn't that great, but I'd say they arn't that bad for only being in Spanish 3.

Hada Madrina By Serena Rosado Clase 6
De pequena, me gustaba hacer magica. Cambie a un pricipe en una rana. Mi madre, una bruja, estaba muy orgulloso* de mi. Mi padre, un mago, hizo mi varita* magica. Mi varita magica es de color rosado y azul con destellos*. De pequena, tome clases de otra hada madrina. Ella me enseno a cambiar las cosas* y volar*. Mi madre dice que cuando soy mayor voy a llegar a ayudar a las princesas. Ella me dijo que tenia un sueno que me ayudo a una princesa llamada Cenicienta. Solo se que voy a ser un heroe de verdad, cuande voy a mas clases.! No puedo esperar hasta que llegue a ser un hada madrina professonal!
1) proud 2) wand 3) sparkles 4) change things 5) fly

Translation:
As a child, I liked to do magic. I could Switch to a Prince into a frog. My mother, a witch, was very proud of me. My father, a magician, made my magic wand. My magic wand is pink and blue with sparkles. From when I was small, I took classes from another fairy godmother. She taught me to change things and fly. My mother says that when I'm older I will get to help the princesses. She said she had a dream that helped me a princess named Cinderella. I just know I'll be a real hero when I go to more classes.! I can not wait until I get to be a professonal fairy godmother!

Alissa era una persona muy especial. Ella era muy obediente y jugueton. Ella gustaba ver cines y escuchar musica. Sus padres fueron Janae y Francis Rosado. Fueron muy pacientes y carinosa. Alissa siempre contaba chistes y hacia travesuras. Ella era muy comical. Sus mejor amigos era Rebekah, Amanda, Sierrah, y sus hermana, Shealeen. Alissa le encantaba tomar fotos y escribir. Su actividad favorita era el baile. Descanse en paz.

Translation:
Alissa was a very special person. She was very obedient and playful. She liked to watch movies and listen to music. His parents were Janae and Francis Rose. They were very patient and loving. Alissa always telling jokes and playing pranks. She was very comical. His best friends was Rebekah, Amanda, Sierrah, and his sister, Shealeen. Alissa loves to take pictures and write. His favorite activity was dancing. Rest in peace.

Me encanta bailar. El baile es genial. Es muy divertido y agradable. Podría hacerlo todo el día. Voy a bailar dos veces a la semana. El nombre de mi maestro es Amy. Ella es increíble. Ella es muy buena en la danza y me enseña mucho. El tipo de baile que me gusta hacer es bailar irlandés. Muchas personas no toman la danza irlandesa, pero yo sí. Es divertido por encima de cualquier otro tipo de baile. Es divertido y cultural muy. Deberías probarlo alguna vez. Es más difícil de lo que parece.

Translation:
I love to dance. Dancing is great. It is really fun and enjoyable. I could do it all day long. I go to dance two times a week. My teacher's name is Amy. She is amazing. She is very good at dance and teaches me alot. The kind of dancing I like to do is Irish dancing. Many people don't take Irish dance, but I do. It is fun above any other kind of dance. It's fun and very cultural. You should try it sometime. It's more difficult than it looks.

Spring Break

Man, I have been super busy these past few weeks with school and dance and all sorts of crazy stuff, but I'm finally getting myself caught up on stuff! I worked super hard the last part of third term to keep my 4.0 streak (which I did! yay!), as well as keep up in dance since we have compititions coming up soon! Hopefully in these next few compititions I will be able to move up to a champion level! I'm almost there! But anyway, this week is Spring Break, I wake up ready for tons of fun, and there are piles and piles of snow outside. What the heck!?! This is April for heaven's sake! Ugh! I hate snow so bad. That's mostly the reason that I hate living in Utah - the weather the just spoils everything. And watch, next week when we have to go back ti school its going to be super warm outside. Uh - it makes me so upset! Grr! But Spring Break - I totally can't wait, and here's some of my [evil] plans:

So first of all we are driving up to visit my cousins and grandma in Alpine. Now, my cousin Mariah who is also 15 is very much like me - very mischievious and full of fun and always looking for trouble. We love harassing my grandma's old neighbors or freaking people out up in the mountain paths were they live. Then (the best part of all) I think I've told you that they live in the most giant house you will ever set eyes upon. It really doesn't even look like a house! We like to make fun of the "cleaning people" that come and clean her house and telling them they "missed a spot", or investigate on this creepy mexican dude that roams the halls of there house. We also like to camp out and just talk or tell funny stories and mostly plan pranks and other fun stuff to do. We also enjoy not going to bed, and just roaming the neighborhood and knocking on people's windows or climbing onto their roofs and stomping around, and just being annoying teenagers having a good time. My counsins have this huge ugly, stuffed, real life turkey that they really want to get rid of, but don't know what to do with it. Mariah and I volunteered to be the ones to find a new home for it. This weekend when we drive up there to visit, we're planning on leaving that ugly old turkey on my grandma's neighbor (Rotten Tooth Guy)'s porch, and having someone hide in the bushes with a camera. It'd going to be awesome!!! Tee Hee! We also have a life time supply of Silly String hidden away, so there's many possibilities there, too. We might write creepy messages in the snow with it, or trap some oldy inside their house! We also might hide in the bushes along the mountain path and jump out and spray random people walking calmly by...

Literary Analysis for Great Expectations

I figured I might as well post my Literary Analysis for Great Expectations on my Blog as well, since I thought it was pretty good. It seems pretty long since I had to had in the lengthy passage from the book to write about. I hope you enjoy it!

The Dickens novel Great Expectations was a fascinating and intriguing love story, about a young boy who falls in love, tastes the bitter hate and revenge of the world, and discovers many things he never noticed before, such as the kindness and charity of a true friend. This books shows that revenge is truly not the answer, and will only make things much worse than they started out to be. As Pip grows and goes on with his life, he meets many people who thought the only way to be satisfied was through revenge and trickery, but in the end discover in a most dreadful way, that they were indeed very wrong.
“Putting Miss Havisham's note in my pocket, that it might serve as my credentials for so soon reappearing at Satis House, in case her waywardness should lead her to express any surprise at seeing me, I went down again by the coach next day. But I alighted at the Halfway House, and breakfasted there, and walked the rest of the distance; for, I sought to get into the town quietly by the unfrequented ways, and to leave it in the same manner.

The best light of the day was gone when I passed along the quiet echoing courts behind the High-street. The nooks of ruin where the old monks had once had their refectories and gardens, and where the strong walls were now pressed into the service of humble sheds and stables, were almost as silent as the old monks in their graves. The cathedral chimes had at once a sadder and a more remote sound to me, as I hurried on avoiding observation, than they had ever had before; so, the swell of the old organ was borne to my ears like funeral music; and the rooks, as they hovered about the grey tower and swung in the bare high trees of the priory-garden, seemed to call to me that the place was changed, and that Estella was gone out of it for ever.

An elderly woman whom I had seen before as one of the servants who lived in the supplementary house across the back court-yard, opened the gate. The lighted candle stood in the dark passage within, as of old, and I took it up and ascended the staircase alone. Miss Havisham was not in her own room, but was in the larger room across the landing. Looking in at the door, after knocking in vain, I saw her sitting on the hearth in a ragged chair, close before, and lost in the contemplation of, the ashy fire.

Doing as I had often done, I went in, and stood, touching the old chimney-piece, where she could see me when she raised her eyes. There was an air or utter loneliness upon her, that would have moved me to pity though she had wilfully done me a deeper injury than I could charge her with. As I stood compassionating her, and thinking how in the progress of time I too had come to be a part of the wrecked fortunes of that house, her eyes rested on me. She stared, and said in a low voice, "Is it real?"

"It is I, Pip. Mr. Jaggers gave me your note yesterday, and I have lost no time."

"Thank you. Thank you."

As I brought another of the ragged chairs to the hearth and sat down, I remarked a new expression on her face, as if she were afraid of me.

"I want," she said, "to pursue that subject you mentioned to me when you were last here, and to show you that I am not all stone. But perhaps you can never believe, now, that there is anything human in my heart?"

When I said some reassuring words, she stretched out her tremulous right hand, as though she was going to touch me; but she recalled it again before I understood the action, or knew how to receive it.

"You said, speaking for your friend, that you could tell me how to do something useful and good. Something that you would like done, is it not?"

"Something that I would like done very much."

"What is it?"

I began explaining to her that secret history of the partnership. I had not got far into it, when I judged from her looks that she was thinking in a discursive way of me, rather than of what I said. It seemed to be so, for, when I stopped speaking, many moments passed before she showed that she was conscious of the fact.

"Do you break off," she asked then, with her former air of being afraid of me, "because you hate me too much to bear to speak to me?"

"No, no," I answered, "how can you think so, Miss Havisham! I stopped because I thought you were not following what I said."

"Perhaps I was not," she answered, putting a hand to her head. "Begin again, and let me look at something else. Stay! Now tell me."

She set her hand upon her stick, in the resolute way that sometimes was habitual to her, and looked at the fire with a strong expression of forcing herself to attend. I went on with my explanation, and told her how I had hoped to complete the transaction out of my means, but how in this I was disappointed. That part of the subject (I reminded her) involved matters which could form no part of my explanation, for they were the weighty secrets of another.

"So!" said she, assenting with her head, but not looking at me. "And how much money is wanting to complete the purchase?"

I was rather afraid of stating it, for it sounded a large sum. "Nine hundred pounds."

"If I give you the money for this purpose, will you keep my secret as you have kept your own?"

"Quite as faithfully."

"And your mind will be more at rest?"

"Much more at rest."

"Are you very unhappy now?"

She asked this question, still without looking at me, but in an unwonted tone of sympathy. I could not reply at the moment, for my voice failed me. She put her left arm across the head of her stick, and softly laid her forehead on it.

"I am far from happy, Miss Havisham; but I have other causes of disquiet than any you know of. They are the secrets I have mentioned."

After a little while, she raised her head and looked at the fire again.

"It is noble in you to tell me that you have other causes of unhappiness, Is it true?"

"Too true."

"Can I only serve you, Pip, by serving your friend? Regarding that as done, is there nothing I can do for you yourself?"

"Nothing. I thank you for the question. I thank you even more for the tone of the question. But, there is nothing."

She presently rose from her seat, and looked about the blighted room for the means of writing. There were non there, and she took from her pocket a yellow set of ivory tablets, mounted in tarnished gold, and wrote upon them with a pencil in a case of tarnished gold that hung from her neck.

"You are still on friendly terms with Mr. Jaggers?"

"Quite. I dined with him yesterday."

"This is an authority to him to pay you that money, to lay out at your irresponsible discretion for your friend. I keep no money here; but if you would rather Mr. Jaggers knew nothing of the matter, I will send it to you."

"Thank you, Miss Havisham; I have not the least objection to receiving it from him."

She read me what she had written, and it was direct and clear, and evidently intended to absolve me from any suspicion of profiting by the receipt of the money. I took the tablets from her hand, and it trembled again, and it trembled more as she took off the chain to which the pencil was attached, and put it in mine. All this she did, without looking at me.

"My name is on the first leaf. If you can ever write under my name, "I forgive her," though ever so long after my broken heart is dust - pray do it!"

"O Miss Havisham," said I, "I can do it now. There have been sore mistakes; and my life has been a blind and thankless one; and I want forgiveness and direction far too much, to be bitter with you."

She turned her face to me for the first time since she had averted it, and, to my amazement, I may even add to my terror, dropped on her knees at my feet; with her folded hands raised to me in the manner in which, when her poor heart was young and fresh and whole, they must often have been raised to heaven from her mother's side.

To see her with her white hair and her worn face kneeling at my feet, gave me a shock through all my frame. I entreated her to rise, and got my arms about her to help her up; but she only pressed that hand of mine which was nearest to her grasp, and hung her head over it and wept. I had never seen her shed a tear before, and, in the hope that the relief might do her good, I bent over her without speaking. She was not kneeling now, but was down upon the ground.

"O!" she cried, despairingly. "What have I done! What have I done!"

"If you mean, Miss Havisham, what have you done to injure me, let me answer. Very little. I should have loved her under any circumstances. - Is she married?"

"Yes."

It was a needless question, for a new desolation in the desolate house had told me so.

"What have I done! What have I done!" She wrung her hands, and crushed her white hair, and returned to this cry over and over again. "What have I done!"

I knew not how to answer, or how to comfort her. That she had done a grievous thing in taking an impressionable child to mould into the form that her wild resentment, spurned affection, and wounded pride, found vengeance in, I knew full well. But that, in shutting out the light of day, she had shut out infinitely more; that, in seclusion, she had secluded herself from a thousand natural and healing influences; that, her mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do and must and will that reverse the appointed order of their Maker; I knew equally well. And could I look upon her without compassion, seeing her punishment in the ruin she was, in her profound unfitness for this earth on which she was placed, in the vanity of sorrow which had become a master mania, like the vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, the vanity of unworthiness, and other monstrous vanities that have been curses in this world?

"Until you spoke to her the other day, and until I saw in you a looking-glass that showed me what I once felt myself, I did not know what I had done. What have I done! What have I done!" And so again, twenty, fifty times over, What had she done!

"Miss Havisham," I said, when her cry had died away, "you may dismiss me from your mind and conscience. But Estella is a different case, and if you can ever undo any scrap of what you have done amiss in keeping a part of her right nature away from her, it will be better to do that, than to bemoan the past through a hundred years."

"Yes, yes, I know it. But, Pip - my Dear!" There was an earnest womanly compassion for me in her new affection. "My Dear! Believe this: when she first came to me, I meant to save her from misery like my own. At first I meant no more."

"Well, well!" said I. "I hope so."

"But as she grew, and promised to be very beautiful, I gradually did worse, and with my praises, and with my jewels, and with my teachings, and with this figure of myself always before her a warning to back and point my lessons, I stole her heart away and put ice in its place."

"Better," I could not help saying, "to have left her a natural heart, even to be bruised or broken."

With that, Miss Havisham looked distractedly at me for a while, and then burst out again, What had she done!

"If you knew all my story," she pleaded, "you would have some compassion for me and a better understanding of me."

"Miss Havisham," I answered, as delicately as I could, "I believe I may say that I do know your story, and have known it ever since I first left this neighbourhood. It has inspired me with great commiseration, and I hope I understand it and its influences. Does what has passed between us give me any excuse for asking you a question relative to Estella? Not as she is, but as she was when she first came here?"

She was seated on the ground, with her arms on the ragged chair, and her head leaning on them. She looked full at me when I said this, and replied, "Go on."

"Whose child was Estella?"

She shook her head.

"You don't know?"

She shook her head again.

"But Mr. Jaggers brought her here, or sent her here?"

"Brought her here."

"Will you tell me how that came about?"

She answered in a low whisper and with caution: "I had been shut up in these rooms a long time (I don't know how long; you know what time the clocks keep here), when I told him that I wanted a little girl to rear and love, and save from my fate. I had first seen him when I sent for him to lay this place waste for me; having read of him in the newspapers, before I and the world parted. He told me that he would look about him for such an orphan child. One night he brought her here asleep, and I called her Estella."

"Might I ask her age then?"

"Two or three. She herself knows nothing, but that she was left an orphan and I adopted her."

So convinced I was of that woman's being her mother, that I wanted no evidence to establish the fact in my own mind. But, to any mind, I thought, the connection here was clear and straight.

What more could I hope to do by prolonging the interview? I had succeeded on behalf of Herbert, Miss Havisham had told me all she knew of Estella, I had said and done what I could to ease her mind. No matter with what other words we parted; we parted.

Twilight was closing in when I went down stairs into the natural air. I called to the woman who had opened the gate when I entered, that I would not trouble her just yet, but would walk round the place before leaving. For, I had a presentiment that I should never be there again, and I felt that the dying light was suited to my last view of it.

By the wilderness of casks that I had walked on long ago, and on which the rain of years had fallen since, rotting them in many places, and leaving miniature swamps and pools of water upon those that stood on end, I made my way to the ruined garden. I went all round it; round by the corner where Herbert and I had fought our battle; round by the paths where Estella and I had walked. So cold, so lonely, so dreary all!

Taking the brewery on my way back, I raised the rusty latch of a little door at the garden end of it, and walked through. I was going out at the opposite door - not easy to open now, for the damp wood had started and swelled, and the hinges were yielding, and the threshold was encumbered with a growth of fungus - when I turned my head to look back. A childish association revived with wonderful force in the moment of the slight action, and I fancied that I saw Miss Havisham hanging to the beam. So strong was the impression, that I stood under the beam shuddering from head to foot before I knew it was a fancy - though to be sure I was there in an instant.

The mournfulness of the place and time, and the great terror of this illusion, though it was but momentary, caused me to feel an indescribable awe as I came out between the open wooden gates where I had once wrung my hair after Estella had wrung my heart. Passing on into the front court-yard, I hesitated whether to call the woman to let me out at the locked gate of which she had the key, or first to go up-stairs and assure myself that Miss Havisham was as safe and well as I had left her. I took the latter course and went up.

I looked into the room where I had left her, and I saw her seated in the ragged chair upon the hearth close to the fire, with her back towards me. In the moment when I was withdrawing my head to go quietly away, I saw a great flaming light spring up. In the same moment, I saw her running at me, shrieking, with a whirl of fire blazing all about her, and soaring at least as many feet above her head as she was high.

I had a double-caped great-coat on, and over my arm another thick coat. That I got them off, closed with her, threw her down, and got them over her; that I dragged the great cloth from the table for the same purpose, and with it dragged down the heap of rottenness in the midst, and all the ugly things that sheltered there; that we were on the ground struggling like desperate enemies, and that the closer I covered her, the more wildly she shrieked and tried to free herself; that this occurred I knew through the result, but not through anything I felt, or thought, or knew I did. I knew nothing until I knew that we were on the floor by the great table, and that patches of tinder yet alight were floating in the smoky air, which, a moment ago, had been her faded bridal dress.

Then, I looked round and saw the disturbed beetles and spiders running away over the floor, and the servants coming in with breathless cries at the door. I still held her forcibly down with all my strength, like a prisoner who might escape; and I doubt if I even knew who she was, or why we had struggled, or that she had been in flames, or that the flames were out, until I saw the patches of tinder that had been her garments, no longer alight but falling in a black shower around us.

She was insensible, and I was afraid to have her moved, or even touched. Assistance was sent for and I held her until it came, as if I unreasonably fancied (I think I did) that if I let her go, the fire would break out again and consume her. When I got up, on the surgeon's coming to her with other aid, I was astonished to see that both my hands were burnt; for, I had no knowledge of it through the sense of feeling.

On examination it was pronounced that she had received serious hurts, but that they of themselves were far from hopeless; the danger lay mainly in the nervous shock. By the surgeon's directions, her bed was carried into that room and laid upon the great table: which happened to be well suited to the dressing of her injuries. When I saw her again, an hour afterwards, she lay indeed where I had seen her strike her stick, and had heard her say that she would lie one day.

Though every vestige of her dress was burnt, as they told me, she still had something of her old ghastly bridal appearance; for, they had covered her to the throat with white cotton-wool, and as she lay with a white sheet loosely overlying that, the phantom air of something that had been and was changed, was still upon her.

I found, on questioning the servants, that Estella was in Paris, and I got a promise from the surgeon that he would write to her by the next post. Miss Havisham's family I took upon myself; intending to communicate with Mr. Matthew Pocket only, and leave him to do as he liked about informing the rest. This I did next day, through Herbert, as soon as I returned to town.

There was a stage, that evening, when she spoke collectedly of what had happened, though with a certain terrible vivacity. Towards midnight she began to wander in her speech, and after that it gradually set in that she said innumerable times in a low solemn voice, "What have I done!" And then, "When she first came, I meant to save her from misery like mine." And then, "Take the pencil and write under my name, 'I forgive her!'" She never changed the order of these three sentences, but she sometimes left out a word in one or other of them; never putting in another word, but always leaving a blank and going on to the next word.

As I could do no service there, and as I had, nearer home, that pressing reason for anxiety and fear which even her wanderings could not drive out of my mind, I decided in the course of the night that I would return by the early morning coach: walking on a mile or so, and being taken up clear of the town. At about six o'clock of the morning, therefore, I leaned over her and touched her lips with mine, just as they said, not stopping for being touched, "Take the pencil and write under my name, 'I forgive her.’”
(Great Expectations, pages 419-429,Chapter 49)
This extraordinary passage for the book relates when Pip returns to Miss Havisham’s household, still heartbroken about Estella being married to another and Miss Havisham’s cruel revenge on males. When he arrives, however, he is startled to find Miss Havisham asking if she may do him the favor of giving him 900 pounds for Herbert “secret salary” sort of deal. After quickly agreeing to pay the money if it would cause him to feel more at rest, she asks if there is anything else she may possibly do to serve him, and asks him if he is unhappy. Pip assures her that there are other reasons he is unhappy besides her and Estella (referring to Provis and those complications), and then says to him, "My name is on the first leaf. If you can ever write under my name, "I forgive her," though ever so long after my broken heart is dust - pray do it!". She then begins to beg for Pip’s forgiveness, and is obviously disgusted with herself for what she has done to Pip. She told him that the last time he came to visit her and Estella, and cried and told of his love for her, she had at last seen what she had been doing for so many years, and was mortified with herself. At the end of this chapter, Miss Havisham’s dress catches fire, and is severely burnt , as well as Pip’s hands and arm, from saving her from the flames.
This passage was very significant to the book because of its telling and also showing that revenge is a distasteful route to take. You may feel satisfied at first, but it will always come back to bite you in the butt, and can never just hurt the person it was intended for. As Miss Havisham expresses her horror with herself and what she has done to Pip and Estella, you can feel the pain and anger going on inside both of them, and how much Miss Havisham’s early decision for revenge was a wrong choice. At the end of the chapter when Miss Havisham catches her dress on fire, it is symbolic to her soul, and what sort of state her life and mind are in. She is angry at the world and wants nothing but fiery revenge. It is also symbolic as Pip’s hands and arms are also burnt, showing that when someone chooses to be always burning and evil inside, it also affects other people, and burns other people.
The imagery and description of this passage is so rich and filled with feeling that it really just an exciting chapter to read. The way Dickens tells this part of the story, you can really feel the heat and tension and remorse. I don’t think the characters really hide any feelings in this chapter, so it’s all thrown out there plain and with a lot of passion. The imagery is perfect, in the sense that you can really see the image of Miss Havisham running at Pip with wild eyes and old tattered wedding dress aflame. You can see Pip frantically pulling the spidery table cloth away to cover the dying old woman, and hear her muffled screams of terror and pain. It’s really just those extra, unexpected little details that Dickens throws in there that give you that perfect imagine and description in your mind. When Miss Havisham or Pip talks, you can feel their insides burning or softening, since like I said, no feelings are really hid in this passage. This rich detail really helps magnify the theme of revenge and how terrible it can end up to be, and the symbolism of the fire is truly awesome.
The voice in this passage is really magnificent. It is two main characters unfolding and coming undone to express their true feelings from deep within their souls. One of the reasons I chose this passage is because it is a very strong point in the book, when things start to pick up, and the theme of the book is expressed to its fullest. The real theme that revenge is a harder road to take stands out as Miss Havisham begs for Pip’s forgiveness. It also proves how strong Pip is, how calm he is able to be during this upbeat chapter, and how easily he will forgive Miss Havisham after so much suffering. At the beginning of the chapter it does say that looking at her lonely appearance he almost felt pity for her, but didn’t after remembering all the pain she had caused him, but he seems to soften after listening to Miss Havisham’s frantic pleas. However, the narrative voice in this passage was also very strong in describing what was being felt, and how things were unfolding. The tone of the passage as a whole is full of heat, and strong feelings of pity and compassion. At times it is very desperate and then dies down to a calmer pace, and then speeds back up again at the end of the chapter.
This passage truly is one of the peaks of this book, with strong words and feelings. When reading this passage for the first time, it really testified to me that revenge is a sick thing. Revenge may not always be as extreme as Miss Havisham used it, but it can never bring good, and you will end up like the broken Miss Havisham in some way, shape, or form. It’s just no use, and no good. The power of this passage and the morning and want for forgiveness, or to go back and tell themselves what they now knew, and to go back and redo everything is very strong and meaningful. This part of the book can really speak to you and your own life, how you’re living, and learning from the character’s mistakes and realizations. This passage totally ties together the theme of revenge and the feelings and results of certain behaviors.
In conclusion, Great Expectations was a very touching book for me. I thought it had an excellent story line and excellent teachings and morals. The story of Pip’s love for Estella and Miss Havisham’s awful revenge and Joe’s and Biddy’s unconditional love for Pip teaches us to be loving and gracious in our own lives, and not to seek revenge when we are hurt, but to compromise, not to end up like Miss Havisham. It teaches us that if we take our time to do simple acts of kindness, it make come back to us later with a huge blessing, like Provis did for Pip. It was an amazing and touching story, sure to be remembered by me. I have learned a lot from its teaching and mistakes of the characters, and I know it has really affected my life.

The Window continued...

Here is more to the novel I am workig on writing...

As if to make all the matters of her childhood worse, shortly after moving into her new little house the woman discovered at her six month check-up that she had inherited the deadly family cancer. It was slow and unforgiving, moving from the feet, through the legs, and after weakening the abdominal organs, it attacked the heart. At sixty-seven years old, the woman seemed to feel it upon her more and more each day, causing sore feet, to numb ankles and finally a walker, then a wheelchair. Each week she reported to her personal doctor, dreading the same news each time – there was still no cure. She begged the scientists, saying she would readily pay any amount, even showing them the money…but they just couldn’t figure it out. But she didn’t want to die! She had once loved to invent, and imagine, planting and skipping, sometimes running through the fields behind her home, and riding the horses she had secretly purchased until the day was done. But that was all over now. Pretty soon she wouldn’t even be able to stand. What a life this is, the old dying woman often thought to herself. What a life.
None of this woman’s neighbors ever bothered or dared to visit her, but if they had just taken one chance to step inside her house, they would have been instantly filled with amazement and insist upon visiting longer. Its _____ style was most pleasurable, with cute little tables and chandeliers adorning each room. The curtains matched the couch pillows, and dainty little pots and pans hung from a ______ above the kitchen counter. In the living room beside the welcoming fire place a coffee table sat with a silver tea tray, holding crumpets and some of the best tea you’d ever sip. A bookshelf on the right wall spilling over with books of all sorts would catch your attention, and then you would look up as her ____ clock chimed on the mantle. Out the side door you would find a miniature green house the woman had once constructed herself, with secret herbs and strange flowers from many faraway lands. The backyard was more like some sort of sanctuary, with rows and rows of rose bushes and vine covered arches.
In the back rooms of the magnificent little house, you might find a pancake making machine, or possibly a mechanical letter sealer. All the woman’s many inventions she thought up years ago when healthy and well would be lined up against the wall, with tables of acids and experiments in the center. To the side, a small kitchen, and the whirring of a coffee maker preparing a hot cup for the once industrious inventor. The open basement window would reveal an experimental garden blossoming in the window well, and as you looked up at the little chimney puffing smoke, you would realize that it certainly was a comfortable little place.
But no one did visit her, so this woman was left to enjoy it all alone, which she had no problem doing. She had learned to rather dislike all people after her dreary childhood, accidental fortune and tragic disease, luring greedy people to follow her everywhere she even thought of going. And now escaped from them and all alone, she didn’t have to deal all the worldly people, and she had no intent upon becoming acquainted with anyone. And that was that.
So aside from all of her reading and thinking and studying her old inventions, after some time alone, this woman couldn’t help but to notice her neighbors…peculiar people, and the most interesting things they did. She realized that when one can’t walk, the world is a whole different place. She soon found herself constantly watching them all through the perfectly polished glass of her favorite window, just wide enough to admit her wheelchair, and not alter her lovely view of the neighborhood.
Perched in her big black chair at her large upstairs bedroom window, with misty green curtains laid softly at each side, she watched them. She studied their every move. She observed who they talked to and how, and the things that revoked certain feelings. She observed the things they bought and why, and what time they left their houses for what reasons. Their neighborly or personal disputes were never missed by this woman, bestowing upon them the icy glare of a lonely old, crippled woman. But behind the ice, the eyes melted until they were almost in tears. She watched them fight and cry and laugh and play – it was all just too interesting. Some days she realized what she was doing, and wondered if she had gone crazy, watching all her stupid neighbors, people she didn’t even know…and yet, she knew them. And the more she watched, the more she began to wonder if her lonely, reserved life was really what she wanted after all…
As if to make all the matters of her childhood worse, shortly after moving into her new little house the woman discovered at her six month check-up that she had inherited the deadly family cancer. It was slow and unforgiving, moving from the feet, through the legs, and after weakening the abdominal organs, it attacked the heart. At sixty-seven years old, the woman seemed to feel it upon her more and more each day, causing sore feet, to numb ankles and finally a walker, then a wheelchair. Each week she reported to her personal doctor, dreading the same news each time – there was still no cure. She begged the scientists, saying she would readily pay any amount, even showing them the money…but they just couldn’t figure it out. But she didn’t want to die! She had once loved to invent, and imagine, planting and skipping, sometimes running through the fields behind her home, and riding the horses she had secretly purchased until the day was done. But that was all over now. Pretty soon she wouldn’t even be able to stand. What a life this is, the old dying woman often thought to herself. What a life.
None of this woman’s neighbors ever bothered or dared to visit her, but if they had just taken one chance to step inside her house, they would have been instantly filled with amazement and insist upon visiting longer. Its _____ style was most pleasurable, with cute little tables and chandeliers adorning each room. The curtains matched the couch pillows, and dainty little pots and pans hung from a ______ above the kitchen counter. In the living room beside the welcoming fire place a coffee table sat with a silver tea tray, holding crumpets and some of the best tea you’d ever sip. A bookshelf on the right wall spilling over with books of all sorts would catch your attention, and then you would look up as her ____ clock chimed on the mantle. Out the side door you would find a miniature green house the woman had once constructed herself, with secret herbs and strange flowers from many faraway lands. The backyard was more like some sort of sanctuary, with rows and rows of rose bushes and vine covered arches.
In the back rooms of the magnificent little house, you might find a pancake making machine, or possibly a mechanical letter sealer. All the woman’s many inventions she thought up years ago when healthy and well would be lined up against the wall, with tables of acids and experiments in the center. To the side, a small kitchen, and the whirring of a coffee maker preparing a hot cup for the once industrious inventor. The open basement window would reveal an experimental garden blossoming in the window well, and as you looked up at the little chimney puffing smoke, you would realize that it certainly was a comfortable little place.
But no one did visit her, so this woman was left to enjoy it all alone, which she had no problem doing. She had learned to rather dislike all people after her dreary childhood, accidental fortune and tragic disease, luring greedy people to follow her everywhere she even thought of going. And now escaped from them and all alone, she didn’t have to deal all the worldly people, and she had no intent upon becoming acquainted with anyone. And that was that.
So aside from all of her reading and thinking and studying her old inventions, after some time alone, this woman couldn’t help but to notice her neighbors…peculiar people, and the most interesting things they did. She realized that when one can’t walk, the world is a whole different place. She soon found herself constantly watching them all through the perfectly polished glass of her favorite window, just wide enough to admit her wheelchair, and not alter her lovely view of the neighborhood.
Perched in her big black chair at her large upstairs bedroom window, with misty green curtains laid softly at each side, she watched them. She studied their every move. She observed who they talked to and how, and the things that revoked certain feelings. She observed the things they bought and why, and what time they left their houses for what reasons. Their neighborly or personal disputes were never missed by this woman, bestowing upon them the icy glare of a lonely old, crippled woman. But behind the ice, the eyes melted until they were almost in tears. She watched them fight and cry and laugh and play – it was all just too interesting. Some days she realized what she was doing, and wondered if she had gone crazy, watching all her stupid neighbors, people she didn’t even know…and yet, she knew them. And the more she watched, the more she began to wonder if her lonely, reserved life was really what she wanted after all…
As if to make all the matters of her childhood worse, shortly after moving into her new little house the woman discovered at her six month check-up that she had inherited the deadly family cancer. It was slow and unforgiving, moving from the feet, through the legs, and after weakening the abdominal organs, it attacked the heart. At sixty-seven years old, the woman seemed to feel it upon her more and more each day, causing sore feet, to numb ankles and finally a walker, then a wheelchair. Each week she reported to her personal doctor, dreading the same news each time – there was still no cure. She begged the scientists, saying she would readily pay any amount, even showing them the money…but they just couldn’t figure it out. But she didn’t want to die! She had once loved to invent, and imagine, planting and skipping, sometimes running through the fields behind her home, and riding the horses she had secretly purchased until the day was done. But that was all over now. Pretty soon she wouldn’t even be able to stand. What a life this is, the old dying woman often thought to herself. What a life.
None of this woman’s neighbors ever bothered or dared to visit her, but if they had just taken one chance to step inside her house, they would have been instantly filled with amazement and insist upon visiting longer. Its _____ style was most pleasurable, with cute little tables and chandeliers adorning each room. The curtains matched the couch pillows, and dainty little pots and pans hung from a ______ above the kitchen counter. In the living room beside the welcoming fire place a coffee table sat with a silver tea tray, holding crumpets and some of the best tea you’d ever sip. A bookshelf on the right wall spilling over with books of all sorts would catch your attention, and then you would look up as her ____ clock chimed on the mantle. Out the side door you would find a miniature green house the woman had once constructed herself, with secret herbs and strange flowers from many faraway lands. The backyard was more like some sort of sanctuary, with rows and rows of rose bushes and vine covered arches.
In the back rooms of the magnificent little house, you might find a pancake making machine, or possibly a mechanical letter sealer. All the woman’s many inventions she thought up years ago when healthy and well would be lined up against the wall, with tables of acids and experiments in the center. To the side, a small kitchen, and the whirring of a coffee maker preparing a hot cup for the once industrious inventor. The open basement window would reveal an experimental garden blossoming in the window well, and as you looked up at the little chimney puffing smoke, you would realize that it certainly was a comfortable little place.
But no one did visit her, so this woman was left to enjoy it all alone, which she had no problem doing. She had learned to rather dislike all people after her dreary childhood, accidental fortune and tragic disease, luring greedy people to follow her everywhere she even thought of going. And now escaped from them and all alone, she didn’t have to deal all the worldly people, and she had no intent upon becoming acquainted with anyone. And that was that.
So aside from all of her reading and thinking and studying her old inventions, after some time alone, this woman couldn’t help but to notice her neighbors…peculiar people, and the most interesting things they did. She realized that when one can’t walk, the world is a whole different place. She soon found herself constantly watching them all through the perfectly polished glass of her favorite window, just wide enough to admit her wheelchair, and not alter her lovely view of the neighborhood.
Perched in her big black chair at her large upstairs bedroom window, with misty green curtains laid softly at each side, she watched them. She studied their every move. She observed who they talked to and how, and the things that revoked certain feelings. She observed the things they bought and why, and what time they left their houses for what reasons. Their neighborly or personal disputes were never missed by this woman, bestowing upon them the icy glare of a lonely old, crippled woman. But behind the ice, the eyes melted until they were almost in tears. She watched them fight and cry and laugh and play – it was all just too interesting. Some days she realized what she was doing, and wondered if she had gone crazy, watching all her stupid neighbors, people she didn’t even know…and yet, she knew them. And the more she watched, the more she began to wonder if her lonely, reserved life was really what she wanted after all…