Entry #3

If I could be any Greek goddess I would like to have the quality to foresee the future. Most gods can only make prophecies, but not foresee the future. I would then use this ‘power’ of mine to help the mortals on Earth. I would like to be a goddess that was kind to the mortals. So if I could have and quality, I would like to have the quality to foresee the future. I would like my physical appearance to look normal. I don’t really want to have a head full of snakes or one enormous eye. Instead, I would like have a physical appearance that would be close to a human’s. I would like long, wavy brown hair, with brown eyes, and a long beautiful staff with many stories inscribed on it as my ‘item.’ I would like my animal to be a snake, as snakes are often referred to when fortune tellers are mentioned. That is the type of Greek goddess I would like to be like if I could.

Entry #2

Hermes killing Argus while Argus was guarding Io

Argus was a monster in Greek Mythological. He was a man covered in many eyes, and was able to see everything around him. So destroying him was a very hard task to do. Thankfully, Argus, also known as Argus Panoptes, didn’t destroy any humans. However, he did kill Arcadia, a ravaging bull, a satyr, and he killed Echidna (A female monster consisting of half nymph, half speckled snake). Even though Argus was known as an almost perfect monster, he did eventually get destroyed. But he wasn’t destroyed by strength but rather by brains. Argus was chosen by Hera to guard Io, a woman who Zeus was having an affair with. Zeus, of course, was not happy with this, so he sent Hermes to try and destroy Argus. Hermes, so legend has it, lulled Argus to sleep, and then killed him. Hera, in Argus’ honor, placed his eyes on the peacock (her bird). And that was the end of Argus, the almost-perfect-many-eyed Greek monster.

http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0881992.html
http://www.loggia.com/myth/argus.html
http://edweb.sdsu.edu/people/bdodge/scaffold/GG/creature.html
http://www.areopagus.net/grkbeasts.htm

Mythology Mini Project

Entry #1

Athena

Athena is one of the daughters of Zeus. How she became a god was rather unique; she sprang fro m Zeus’ forehead, fully grown and clothed in amour. Zeus supposedly ate his first wife, Metis (who was pregnant with Athena), to prevent her from giving birth to a son who could possibly steal the throne away from him. But Metis gave Zeus terrible headaches as a kind of revenge. HEPHAESTUS rescued his father by chopping open his head with an axe, and then out sprang Athena! Interestingly enough, she was wearing her mother’s robe as well as her amour. Even though she was born in amour and is very fierce and brave in battle, she is actually the goddess of the city, handicrafts, and agriculture. She does however, only fight in battles that are defending the state and home from outside enemies. She also invented the bridle, which helped men greatly when it came to horses. She also invented many other useful things like the plow, the ship etc. She is Zeus’ favourite child, and is often depicted as wisdom, reason and purity. The owl is her bird, and the olive tree is her tree.
She is similar to Hercules in many ways. Zeus was Hercules’ and Athena’s dad. Hercules and Athena are also very brave and skilled in battle. They both also protect people. Hercules protected the world against many forces of evil, while Athena protected the gods. She actually even helped Hercules. But Athena and Hercules do have some differences. The big one is that Hercules is a mortal while Athena is a immortal (god). So she can live in Olympus but Hercules has to live on Earth. Also, Athena values her virginity very highly and didn’t fall in love. Hercules on the other hand, did fall in love and was attracted to the other sex. Athena had their differences and their similarities.

http://www.goddess-athena.org/Encyclopedia/Athena/index.htm
http://www.desy.de/gna/interpedia/greek_myth/olympian.html

Ok, people's blogs that I commented on...

• Susie:)
• Stacy=)
• Eunice=]
• Jane=D
• Kathie=}
• Joanne:]

YAY! My last Post for Fahrenhiet 451:)

MOOOOOOOOOd

The mood of Fahrenheit is very dark, morose, and lifeless.
There are basically no happy, light, fun parts in this book. It reminds me of a dark room with no windows. The mood is just plain dark. Guy kills Captain Beatty, the Hound and people are trying to kill Guy, Guy and his fire department burn a lady alive, Mildred dumps Guys, Clarisse was killed just because someone felt like running her over, and the whole city gets blown up. This whole book is basically about death and death is not a happy thing that you sing songs about with little children. No, it is a dark, sad thing. That is why I thought the mood of Fahrenheit is dark.
I also think the mood is morose. Morose means gloomily or sullenly ill-humored. That is exactly what I think the mood is. Everything that happens makes me feel gloomily because it’s so dark. And if it was meant to be funny, I didn’t laugh. Even if I wanted too I don’t think I could find a single thing to laugh about.
I also think the mood is lifeless. Mood is all about feelings and emotions, however when I read this book I didn’t get any strong feelings and emotions. It was lifeless; I didn’t really make me feel anything.
Even though the novel’s mood was dark, morose and lifeless I didn’t feel sad. A book can only make me feel sad if the pain seems realistic; I have to feel it in order to be sad. And to feel the pain I have to feel connected to the characters and the characters have to seem real. (Since the characters are the ones experiencing the pain). I was reading this book one night in bed, I think its called The Shunning but I'm not sure. Anyways, the main caharacter seemed so realistic to methat when she experienced pain I cry my eyes out and couldn't go to sleep. Becuase I connected to her and I really felt her pain, I was extremely sad. But in Fahrenheit 451 I couldn’t really connect to any of the characters (except maybe Clarisse) so therefore, I didn’t feel sad for them when painful events happened.
So this novel’s mood to me was dark, morose, and lifeless.

Entry of my Choice

Ok I chose to do an entry of my choice...
So I’m going to write a biography about Ray Bradbury, the author of Fahrenheit 451 and his achievements. I personally don’t like his style of writing, but hey that doesn’t really matter. Here are some facts about his life...

Ray Douglas Bradbury was born on August 22, 1920 in Waukega, Illinois. His heritage is Swedish (his parents were immigrants). He was born into a loving family and interestingly enough, his grandfather and great- grandfather were newspaper publishers. Ray and his family moved quite a lot, but finally settled down in Los Angeles, where Ray attended Los Angeles High School. There is an ‘unique’ story. While living in Los Angeles, Ray would often roller skate through Hollywood, trying to find celebrities. And he actually met one. He met George Burns, a radio star, who gave Ray his first pay as a writer. Ray’s ‘work’ was a joke contributed to the Burns and Allen show. Pretty weird. Anyways, Ray attended and graduated at Los Angeles High School. But he didn’t go to college. Pretty surprising don’t you think? Instead Ray sold newspapers on the streets. Yep, he actually did that. However, while selling newspapers, Ray taught himself at the public library. From there he began to publish science fiction works, and become the famous writer he is today.

Ray married Marguerite (Maggie) Susan McClure in September 27, 1947. They first met in a Fowler Brothers Bookstore, where Maggie worked. Her first impressions of Ray were good ones. She thought he was a thief! The book store had just had a robbery and for some reason Ray looked very suspicious to Maggie. So she started talking to him to try and under cover something. Ray then asked her out for a coffee and you know the rest. Maggie and Ray have 4 daughters, 8 grandkids and 4 cats. Sadly, Maggie is not alive anymore. She died in 2003. She was a big influence on Ray's writing.

Surprisingly, originally Ray didn’t want to be a writer, he wanted to be an actor. However, through some encouragement from his 2 high school teachers (Snow Longley Housh and Jeannet Johnson ) who recognized his talent for writing, he developed into the writer he is today. As you all know, he wrote Fahrenheit 451, but most of you probably didn’t know that he has published 500 works! Now that’s a lot of work. But all that hard work paid of; Ray won a whole bunch of awards. He has been awarded the O. Henry Memorial Award, the Benjamin Franklin Award, the World Fantasy Award for Life time Achievement, the Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America, the PEN Center USA West Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letter, plus others. Ray is has a talent for writing has given life to many great books in this world today. Ray Bradbury is a one-of-a- kind writer.

Websites I used...

• http://www.spaceagecity.com/bradbury/bio.htm
• http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/b/ray-bradbury/
• http://www.raybradbury.com/books/fahrenheit451.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Bradbury

CLIMAX
I think the climax in Fahrenheit 451 is when the city gets bombed because that is when all the loose ends get tied up and it is also the turning point for Guy.
Guy is walking through the forest with Granger and the gang. Granger had just finished telling Guy about his grandfather and how everyone leaves something behind when they die, when all a sudden Guy sees the bomb in the sky. The war had begun. The bomb totally destroys the city and leaves nothing, just a pile of rubble and lost lives.
All Guy’s questions about life get answered at that point. His question of where did he first meet Mildred was answered. And all the questions he had about the world he could now get the answers too. (pg 161: We’ll just start walking today and see the world and the way the world walks around and talks, the way it really looks.) Guy is no longer confused. His old life is gone and his new one lays ahead of him, full of hope. This is a major turning point for Guy. Part of his future involves helping others not make the same decisions his city had: the decision to totally ignore knowledge and instead live for fun.
This novel makes me feel a wide range of emotions. I feel a bit happy, I know that sounds really twisted and awful, but let me explain myself. I am glad because now that ‘stage’ of dumping knowledge for fun is over, and people like Guy can now start to build a new world, a world that doesn’t hate knowledge. This passage also makes me feel very sad and sorrowful. SO many people died that day, and most of them didn’t even know it was coming. They were so caught up in living that they didn’t take the time to notice what was coming ahead.
I think the climax of Fahrenheit 451 is when the city gets bombed.

Current Situation

The people living in the book Fahrenheit 451 are not allowed to think; it is against the law. There are firemen who destroy things and people that contain knowledge. Those firemen are basically like dictators. They tell and control how people live and when people try to live differently they stop/terminate them. For example, near the beginning of the book, Guy and his fire department group burned a lady alive just because she had books (and her books as well). That lady, and many others, doesn’t have the right to own books, so they pay for it. Sadly, the firemen think that how they are forcing people to live is correct and true, but it isn’t.
This reminds be of a current day situation in this world. It reminds me of the dictatorship that is going on in North Korea. Kim Jong- il, to me, is like the firemen in Fahrenheit 451. He decides how people live and sadly how those North Koreans’ life is not very nice at all. So many people are starving, have little clothing, and are without houses because of Kim Jong- il. Kim Jong- il and his army take all the money for themselves and don’t even try to help the commoners. And since he is a dictator it is very hard for North Koreans to remove him from office.
This relates to Fahrenheit 451, except that in Fahrenheit people are stripped from knowledge and in North Korea they are stripped from aid (money, clothes etc) all because of a dictator(s).
However, this novel’s way of solving the problem was to destroy the city. I don’t think that will be a very good way to solve North Korea’s problem. But I do think that North Korea does need outside help, just like the world in Fahrenheit 451 got ‘help’ from another country. Thankfully, outside countries are trying to help North Korea. So I think the situation in Fahrenheit 451 relates to the situation in North Korea.