Piano Lesson

On the former Thursday, I traveled to my piano lesson, one of the most excruciating hours of the week. Usually I never take it to myself to practice, but this week I was filled with an inspiration; I was going to impress my piano teacher beyond reason. I entered the lesson, my countenance disheveled and dreary for I wanted her to think that I had not practiced. This way I could really knock her off her feet. She greeted my acquaintance pleasantly, "Hello Talia! How are you today?" "I am exceedingly well, thank you." My voice showed nonchalance and gave nothing away. I seated myself at her grand piano and bided my time as she conversed with my father. When she navigated her way to the piano she smiled, my cue to issue forth with my now, still unknown to her knowledge, virtuous playing.

Upon starting the piece at my accelerated speed, her eyebrows raised, and her eyes became narrow, tiny slits. I moved my fingers across the keys, each note as perfect as the last; a perfect string of pearls, beautiful and remarkably shaped. I heard no sound from my instructor, but I was so in tune, so focused, that my mind lost all noise, there was no turbulence, my spirit was at a complete quiescence. When I finished, silence enveloped the studio. I turned my gaze towards my teacher and found tears cascading down her silhouette. I swelled with pride, and she filled with happiness at my finally succeeding at capturing the essence of the piece, smiled from head to toe.

My favorite peice of writing

When I start to think about all the writing I have done over the years my mind flickers to and fro; it wanders to many topics and papers. It is simply to hard to hit the hammer on the head, to find one literature example that exceeds all others, instead my minds eye targets a specific English class that deeply changed the way I compose my thoughts, and therefore my writing.

It was in 6th grade when I unlocked the door to knowledge. The knowledge of knowing, of having answers. The knowledge of literature. Anything could come alive in that classroom, all you had to do was write it down. The teacher looked no different than others, yet as soon as he opened his mouth an unheard language came out. What was that you said? You want us to be unimaginably creative, to go beyond all reason and come out with something so fantastic, so out-of-the-box, so awe-inspiring that it can amount to anything? This teachers rules were incredible. As long as we gave 100% effort our creativity was free to expand and fill the room. We had a project titled "Points" and for one month of the school year, every day was free write day. Our teacher got books, papers, art supplies, magazines, he said "explore your own devices all I want is for you to write, write, write!" Every literature project you created you got points for, the longer and more detailed it was, the more points you got. At the end of the month their were projects galore, it wasn't just writing, you could make art as long as it had something to do with literature. One student, made a monologue that was over 6o pages and someone else made a forest, imagery come to life! 

Another aspect that made this teacher glow in my eyes, was his favorite quote, "Expect more get more!" He raised the bar high, he gave us projects that stretched our mind farther and wider than you would ever imagine of a 6th grader, and it felt good! It's like working out, you can only do 10 push ups, but you push, and you do that extra 5, and when your done you can feel that buzz of energy, that adrenaline bursting into your brain, and you feel ecstatic.

Most teachers teach the curriculum, it's easy...but it's also dreadfully boring, because it's not what you are interested in, or at least it's not what you think you are interested in. Teaching the regular curriculum is like saying your shirt is the color brown; can you say unappealing and BLAH. But when you mix it with fun and excitement, a sprinkle of originality, and perhaps a wad of interest, it becomes a dark, silky, dove-chocolate caramel, that would make anyone eager to learn. My teacher said anything you do this year that you are proud of, bring it in and show it off; you might even get some extra credit points. When teaching us about bovine landscape features my teacher said, "You are going to make a map of an island, with any theme you want, that have all these geographical figures on them. Go all out!" Kids came up with all sorts of inventive idea's, one person did a 3d map of "Tarzan Land", another person made their island a snake shape, someone even did Hogwarts. Imagine if my teacher had of said, "Today I am going to spend 50 minutes telling you about geographical features!" Do you think that would have gotten the same response? No, it would not because it is a dull, pasty brown!

And lastly, I felt completely comfortable in that classroom. I don't know how that teacher did it, maybe it was the hundreds of toy figurines, or the colorful artwork, or maybe it was his unassuming presence; but somehow that atmosphere was made for writing, sharing, critiquing, and reading. Everyday at the beginning of class anyone who had something to share was allowed to go up to the front of the room and get the good vibe rolling around the room. The vibe picked up energy as warm, critiques spritzed the air. The ball just kept rolling, gathering energy like an avalanche gathers snow; in that classroom it was okay to be a little nerdy, to get your geek on. In the intensity of writing anything could happen, and atmosphere greatly improves writing. If the atmosphere is warm, and fuzzy then you can be loose and supple, but if the atmosphere is cold and prickly you tense up and your mind, you canvas, is blank.

Wuthering Heights

My outside reading book, "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte, can be hard to understand. At the beginning of this book I was absolutely lost. I had no idea what was happening. I thought this novel would be a boring read, but my prediction has turned out all wrong. From bovine to interesting in just a few pages, this book has already gained a new appeal of interest from me. Suddenly I am hooked, what is going to happen between Heathcliff and Catherine? Where did Heathcliff go? What is this strange families dynamics?

This setting speak a lot to me. Why are they isolated out in the middle on nowhere? I know that was common in the old days, but I would be depressed. If my social life consisted only of my crazy, mean family, a few servants, and the polite people at church I would not see the reason for living. What makes it worse is that they aren't just isolated they're ISOLATED. They live 60 miles from the city. Talk about being totally alone. At first I did't realize how large their property is but as I have delved deeper into the book I'm starting to get a feel that it was bigger than I imagined. I think this is the perfect setting for Catherine and Heathcliff. They are both wild souls, destined for freedom of their expected life tasks. They're physical boundaries of land are so big, and yet they always stretch the zone, for example when they went to thrushcross grange. I think the setting of their domicile is almost an anology of how greedy and selfish they were. They had so much room to move about and yet they still wanted more. Catherine has a loving, devoted husband and yet she still wants Heathcliff. 

I think this story is similar "Cinderalla Story" with Hillary Duff. In each artistic endeavor status controls the decisions. In "Wuthering Heights" Catherine feels as though she must marry Edward Linton because she wants to keep a family name and also stay rich. In "Cinderella Story" because the main character, Sam(played by Hillary Duff), isn't popular she feels as though she isn't good enough for the guy she has feelings for. I think Sam and Heathcliff are quite similar, both are "adopted" into situations and treated cruelly because of their backgrounds, both are treated as servants. They also both have feelings for the beautiful. Heathcliff for Catherine, and Sam for Austyn. Even as far back as the 1800's "Popularity" still gave major complications for relationships. Edward was more "popular" so he got the girl, while Sam wasn't popular she did't feel good enough for the guy.

For my creative project I would like to make a movie. In it we will include the important elements like setting, theme, characterization ect. A few of my less thought out ideas include showing how an opposite decision could've completely altered the story. For instance if Catherine had decided not to marry Mr. Linton, or how had Catherine not spied on Thrushcross Grange she might have never even developed a relationship with Edward Linton. Another idea was finding a few important themes and illustrate them through similar current examples. I thought it would also be fun to contrast and compare then and now, yet how people usually turn out the same or different; the process of evolution through new inventions.