Perseverance

Perseverance is the will to bear through hardship and do so without complaining. Perseverance is the commitment, hard work and endurance of someone to achieve a goal that is hard to reach. The hardships and rewards of perseverance is a central lesson of Old Man and the Sea.

After going 84 days with a catch, Santiago decides to head of into the Gulf to fish. On the first day, the great marlin took the bait and gave the Old man a fight but ultimately escaped. The next few days he faced the same result. The old adage, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” goes very well with the Old Man’s perseverance for catching the marlin. In the beginning it was tough for Santiago but he didn’t give up, he kept trying.

While trying to catch the great marlin, Santiago endured many hardships; the line he used was cutting into his hands, the struggle caused his old body much pain, and sleeping in a skiff caused him to be tired and not in best health. The Old Man’s endurance and determination to catch the great marlin was amazing. After enduring all those hardships he still kept trying and trying to catch the great marlin.Santiago had great respect for the marlin and often referred to great fish as his brother. Even after being very injured and made sick trying to catch the great marlin, he still thought that no one was worthy of eating it.The fish was a great trophy for Santiago and he greatly valued it because of the perseverance it showed during the fight to catch it.

On the third day the Old Man was out at sea, the marlin showed that it was getting tired of the fight by circling the boat. Using the harpoon, the Old Man was able to spear and catch the marlin. On the journey, home the trail of blood attracted some sharks. Santiago had persevere against a new hardships to protect his prize. Using the harpoon he was able to kill one shark but lost his weapon. The Old Man was able to make a new harpoon but by the time he reached shore the sharks had eaten almost the entire marlin. Injured and very weaken from the fight with the marlin but with enough energy and strength to fight off some of the sharks, the Old Man still had his prize, or at least part of it.

When he arrived at shore the Old Man jumped out of his boat, went to his shack, and immediately fell into a deep sleep. Exhausted, he left the marlin on his boat. Some fishermen measured it and inspected it. In a nearby cafe, tourists looked at the skeleton and thought it was a shark. Everybody didn’t really know they were looking at a great marlin. Nobody gave the Old man any credit for catching more just a shark. Despite all the work and perseverance of the Old Man, he didn’t really get credit.

The Old Man showed great courage in going out on the sea all alone at his age. Alone and old, he was still able to catch the great marlin, I certainly wouldn’t have been able to go out onto the sea alone and have been able to catch that huge fish. The journey home would have been terrible, having to fight off sharks and protect my prize. I simply wouldn’t have left land. The Old Man was brave, strong, committed, and most importantly, he persevered.

short story

I woke up in the same white room I have been for the past 13 years and will wake up in until I die; I pulled myself out of the uncomfortable bed I fell asleep on. I walked over to the bullet proof window and looked out. It was snowing, a very thick snow, another white Christmas for New York City I thought. Nobody was out driving on the FDR highway; even though it was Christmas, I thought that was weird. The clock on Church near by said it was about 10:30, even weirder was the jail guards didn’t violently wake me up, they usually wake me up at 6:30. Just then the buzzeer sounded and my door opened, I walked out; nobody, all the doors were opened, no guards, no prisoners, nobody.

I started for the front door and but something caught my eye on the second floor. It looked like there was blood all over the window on the door, I went do to check it out. The door to the cell was open a little, the stench of death immediately hit me. I opened the door fully and a stack of 7 or 8 dead bodies was in the cell. I was so disgusted that I just began to run to the main door. The front door was wide open when I got to it and I ran right outside. I jumped over the jersey barrier and head to the middle of the FDR. I just stopped there everything was so quite; the snow was falling on my face, the wind was blowing in my ears.

I stood up on the roof for about a half an hour, I began to freak out. On the opposite side of the bus I began to hear a loud thumping coming down 2nd ave. I calmed myself and jumped down and began running to 2nd ave, there wasn’t anything just a few deserted cars but nothing. The thumping became louder and louder and all of the sudden a huge creature came out of the subway. It was an elephant, commanded it to stop! To my surprise the beast stopped, I started walking over to it slowly. The elephant already had a saddle on it so I just slowly climbed on top of it and began to ride the elephant up and down 2nd ave. Once i got the hang of riding Erny, that what I named my elephant, we began to walk down 2nd ave. I noticed that there was a wall or cars blocking all the streets so people did try to confine the zombies to one small area.
I made my way up to the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge and began to cross the bridge and approached the toll gates. I saw some movement in one of the booths and began to walk towards it. When I got closer I began to see it was a zombie but going against my gut I approached it, when I got closer it was eating out of a man torso. I started to walk away through another gate, I got through the gate and the elephant began to run it ran on to the highway and sped up. Ernie ran through the next toll booth, I eventually got to Hazen Street and headed towards my gangs headquarters. When I arrived nobody was there, I busted down the front door and pulled of the wood floor and eventually found the huge stash of guns we had. I took 5 duffel bags, 2 for ammo and 3 for guns, the bags I filled with guns, there must have been 6 shotguns, 2 sniper rifles,  2 heavy machine guns, a few assault rifles, 15 pistols, 10 grenades, and 2 missile launchers. I decided to stay the night and brought Ernie down. To pass the time I did mad libs and played sudoku, all of the sudden I jumped and scream “Eureka!” for no reason, then while I was scream “Eureka!” I had a great idea.
I thought about taking some guns and mounting them to Ernie making him a walking fort, then from that idea I thought I should put some armor on Ernie. I remembered there was a old welding torch and a lot of steel up stairs. I spent the whole night making armor and mounts for the guns. I got an early start to the day at 7:30 and headed out, at about 10 Ernie became up set and begin to disobey me; just then I realized he was hungry. To my left their was a pawn shop and to my right there was a grocery store. I went into the grocery store I grabbed a shopping cart and found as many peanuts that I could find, thought it was enough to feed Ernie. I turned and a person was stand in front of me, “Hello” I said and he began reaching for my face. I took the shopping cart and rammed it into the zombies sit and it collapsed, I started to stomp on its face until it stopped making noise. I brought the peanuts over to Ernie and he ate them all up I could tell he was very hungry. I hopped on Ernie and he ran down the subway I pushed open the door until it hit the back and then an alarm sounded. I jumped back on Ernie and ran into the dark empty subway I looked back and saw a huge crowd of zombies begins me jumped off of Ernie pulled out two shotguns and yelled "bring it on!!!". I took out the first few zombie but eventually they were able to push back to me. But I wasn’t done yet, I still had my secret weapon...

Short story draft

I woke up in the same white room I have been for the past 13 years and will wake up in until I die; I pulled myself out of the uncomfortable bed I fell asleep on. I walked over to the bullet proof window and looked out. It was snowing, a very thick snow, another white Christmas for New York City I thought. Nobody was out driving on the FDR highway; even though it was Christmas, I thought that was weird. The clock on Church near by said it was about 10:30, even weirder was the jail guards didn’t violently wake me up, they usually wake me up at 6:30. Just then the buzzer sounded and my door opened, I walked out; nobody, all the doors were opened, no guards, no prisoners, nobody.
I started for the front door and but something caught my eye on the second floor. It looked like there was blood all over the window on the door, I went do to check it out. The door to the cell was open a little, the stench of death immediately hit me. I opened the door fully and a stack of 7 or 8 dead bodies was in the cell. I was so disgusted that I just began to run to the main door. The front door was wide open when I got to it and I ran right outside. I jumped over the jersey barrier and head to the middle of the FDR. I just stopped there everything was so quite; the snow was falling on my face, the wind was blowing in my ears.
I started running down 117th street until a bus was knocked over and blocking the whole road. I started to climb over the bus, once I got to the top of the bus I started to hear grunting and moaning from the other side. I looked up slowly and saw a huge crowd of people just walking around. I began asking where everyone was. A few looked up at me but then just continued to limp around, I didn’t understand why nobody even stopped? I got a closer look at one of the people; it was very pale, almost green looking, a few cuts, and no jaw. Once I realized that I began to yell, but instead of the people just limping around; this time, the huge crowd started to walk towards me. I jumped onto the garage next to the bus and looked out over the street, there were people, just like the ones I saw, all the way down the street.
I stood up on the roof for about a half an hour, I began to freak out. On the opposite side of the bus I began to hear a loud thumping coming down 2nd ave. I calmed myself and jumped down and began running to 2nd ave, there wasn’t anything just a few deserted cars but nothing. The thumping became louder and louder and all of the sudden a huge creature came out of the subway. It was an elephant, commanded it to stop! To my surprise the beast stopped, I started walking over to it slowly. The elephant already had a saddle on it so I just slowly climbed on top of it and began to ride the elephant up and down 2nd ave. Once i got the hang of riding Erny, that what I named my elephant, we began to walk down 2nd ave. I noticed that there was a wall or cars blocking all the streets so people did try to confine the zombies to one small area.
I made my way up to the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge and began to cross the bridge and approached the toll gates. I saw some movement in one of the booths and began to walk towards it. When I got closer I began to see it was a zombie but going against my gut I approached it, when I got closer it was eating out of a man torso. I started to walk away through another gate, I got through the gate and the elephant began to run it ran on to the highway and sped up.

Diction

In the passage we had to read there were words/sayings I didn’t fully understand. A few of these words/sayings were “He sits like a graniteboy waiting for a chisel so he can carve himself out of the mountianside”. What does that mean?

FREEPA

Cultural background means FREEPA; family, religion, education, economics, politics, and arts. I am choosing to write about Melinda’s cultural background. To me it seemed like she didn’t have a good, comforting family like most people at her high school. Since she doesn’t have a good family religion, politics, and economics didn’t really matter. She was big on art so she liked art alot, art was a big part of her she’d enjoy going to art but the teacher was wierd.

Passages

To me the passages most relevant to me were about her and friend Heather, also how she enjoys going to her art class. These two examples stood out to me because it showed personality, she likes art but the the teachers weird and how heather shows her how to join clubs and become known but she refuses to.