Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Final Project
North Pole Prose Block
It was like a half finished painting, left incomplete by a lazy artist. Most of the canvas was blank. White was everywhere, in every direction. Right, left, down, skyward; the earth was white. The snow was an unbroken, ivory blanket, sparking like a powdery jewel. The pale hues of blues under hoary ice contrasted against ashen shadows casted by lofty snow mounds and glaciers; the only colors visibly painted against the grizzly backdrop.
The landscape of ice went on for miles, still and unmoving. It was an ongoing mirror, reflecting frozen crystals and clear diamonds. The gleaming surface slid past the horizon, beautiful and perniciously captivating.
Each flake that fell from the lofty clouds above shimmered in unseen sunlight. They gracefully danced through the air, and gently fell onto the Earth. Tiny gifts sent from God. Small packages drifted from a frosty sky. The Dust settled, glowing against already florescent scenery. Specks conducting magic and fear fell through a misty sky.
The sky was uninterruptedly pure. Then the white was broken; penetrated by the aurora borealis. The painting erupted with color. Greens turned to blues turned to yellows transformed to golds evolved to pinks matured to reds morphed to purples.
Dazzling colors twisted in and around each other, threads woven into an intricate rug. They pulsed as nature’s metronome, with the purpose of a heartbeat. The light darts in the distance like millions of waltzing fairies. They dance away, sunset of the north, and with one last glimpse of a fiery tread, the ripples of light fade posthaste back to white.
The artist picked up his brush to finish what he started.
Everyday Miracles
I Believe In Beauty
I believe in beauty. I believe in the power of beauty. I believe that beauty can reach out to people and touch their hearts. I believe that beauty can inspire. I believe that beauty can impress. I believe that beauty is everywhere. I believe beauty is valuable. I believe the harder it is to find beauty, the more valuable it is. I believe everything is beautiful in its own way, even the ugly things in life. I believe there are different kinds of beauty. I believe beauty is underappreciated. I believe under appreciation creates beauty. I believe beauty is desired. I believe beauty pushes the limits of comprehension. I believe beauty is pleasing to all the senses. I believe all beauty is beautiful.
I believe beauty can move people like nothing else can. Beauty determines what you see. You look to the more beautiful things in life. You prefer to see beauty, and so you keep your vision focused on things that attract you, rather than anything you find ugly. Instead, beauty draws your eyes in.
Beauty determines what you think. What you see is your first impression: that is outer beauty. Your second impression is inner beauty. You are drawn to things that please you, and things that make you happy. Happiness is the pleasure of beauty.
Beauty determines what you feel, and it makes you fall in love. Beauty determines what you look at, what you admire, and in turn what you adore. The more beautiful something or someone is, inside and out, the more likely you are going to pay attention to them and fall in love with them.
Everything we love is based on beauty. Artwork such as pottery and painting is created to please the eye. Music soothes the ear. Sports are intricate patterns woven by players. Super models are attractive, and they effectively use their beauty to make us buy other products that may not be as beautiful.
Beauty is everywhere, from the Sahara desert, to the North Pole. There are different kinds of beauty in different places. There is dry beauty that can consist of rolling sand dunes and spotted lizard life, and there is cold beauty, such as frostbitten snow and falling stars, and there are so many other beauties, some which have not even been discovered yet. Something that is beautiful to one person might not be as pretty to someone else. There is inner beauty and outer beauty, temporary and permanent beauty, old and new beauty, and many others that are all very special and unique and different.
Sometimes beauty is hard to create. It’s hard to imagine beauty until you have experienced it. When you create beauty, you reach above and beyond your worldly experiences, trying to create something that as never been done before, yet is still lovely to look at, and something that will inspire other emotions and feelings.
Beauty in itself inspires. It gives you a goal to achieve. Also, when you see something incredibly beautiful, then you realize incredible things are possible. Beauty is something you work hard to become and create. Once you are inspired by beauty, you can use that inspiration to spur on others. Beauty is asexual, and can continue reproducing, forever creating more and more beauty from within itself.
All in all, beauty is important. It tests the limits of life, and controls emotions such as love. I believe in beauty.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
The Sound of Silence
A camouflage green Honda SUV is parked in the only occupied space in its row near the end of the parking lot. It’s the family car. The driver’s seat is burdened with emptiness, the vinyl cushions and backing wrinkling from lack of weight. The vehicle’s headlights glint up at birds swooping threateningly above. The engine under the hood is cold. The radio station is set on silence.
It’s a loud, constant, screaming silence. It’s the kind that rings and echoes around in your head. The locked doors trap the sound in, making the ringing even louder. I cower in the back seat, trying to hide from my tinnitus. I fight it, but it’s impossible to ward off. I cannot run. I cannot hide. All I can do is listen.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Sonnet
Stolen Green Gifts
By: Zhanna McAtee
One hundred-year-old wine served to a new,
inexperienced alcohol virgin.
Heaven’s gates as they open up to you
dazzle your mind beyond comprehension.
More treasured than gold, more valued than flight,
rarer than diamonds. Cache seems unfailing.
Yet it fades faster than shadows in light.
Greed used to destroy beauty prevailing.
Cruel fates allow trees to disappear like
ripples in a stream with a mile-wide girth.
Each saw blade and truck an accursed strike
against nature’s green gifts that grace our Earth.
How long will the killing of forests last?
Agony for life, death records of past.
“One hundred-year-old wine served to a new,
inexperienced alcohol virgin.”
This line is a metaphor for the under appreciation of the wild. Beauty is wine, but the forest is the most valuable wine in the world. It’s 100 years old, and it’ll take 100 years for wine of the same caliber to be created after that one is drunk and gone. We will all be dead before the date of 100 years from now arrives. We, humans, see the wine, we drink in the wine, we deplete the sources of the rarest wine, and we cannot appreciate it to its full extent, because we are new, inexperienced alcohol virgins and we have nothing of lesser value to compare it to. We know it is good quality, but we do not have the ability to comprehend how delicious this rare wine is.
“Heaven’s gates as they open up to you
dazzle your mind beyond comprehension.”
This line is another metaphor for humans being unable to understand the value of the forest. We, as mere mortals, cannot even begin to think about how wondrous heaven is. None of us have ever been there, and those who have can’t come back and tell us about it, and even if they could, we don’t have words that could possible describe heaven to its full justice. The forest is heaven on Earth, and it has opened its gates graciously and welcomingly to our lives.
“More treasured than gold, more valued than flight,
rarer than diamonds.”
This line compares other wonders of the world to the forest. It says that the forest is much better than gold, diamonds and the power of flight. These three things are a few of the greatest desires humans can comprehend. So, by comparing the forest to something humans can understand and wish for, at least the reader can begin to see that the forest is absolutely astounding and amazing.
“Cache seems unfailing.
Yet it fades faster than shadows in light.
Greed used to destroy beauty prevailing.”
These lines state that we like to think that the forest will be around forever, and it seems like it, but in reality, as our greed for pieces of the forest destroys it bit by bit, the trees are disappearing faster than we realize. Our ugly greed for wood and trees is destroying a beauty we have no right to touch.
“Cruel fates allow trees to disappear like
ripples in a stream with a mile-wide girth.
Each saw blade and truck an accursed strike
against nature’s green gifts that grace our Earth.”
These four lines state that deforestation is happening quickly, like the way ripples submerge into wide bodies of water. Humans use saws and trucks and other ugly, yet efficient machinery to cruelly destroy beauty that was given to us by Mother Nature.
“How long will the killing of forests last?
Agony for life, death records of past.”
These last two lines question how long it will be until the world completely exhausts the resources, and wonders how long forests will be able to survive. It also sums up that killing trees is cruel, and that we have been doing this in the past for too long. It should obviously be stopped.
All in all, this sonnet was written to make the readers realize that greater actions must be taken to protect innocent, beautiful trees before it is too late, and that date of “too late” is much sooner than we think and/or realize.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
The Golden Compass Theme
The Golden Compass Theme
By: Zhanna McAtee
“The Golden Compass” by Philip Pullman, contains the characters Lyra and her dæmon, Pan, who overhear Lord Asriel talking about Dust, which is a magic-like substance found mostly at the North Pole. This small piece of gossip changes their lives forever. Children start disappearing, and after being kicked out of their home, Lyra and Pan travel to the North Pole with some gypsies in order to rescue their missing companion, Roger, who was Lyra’s best friend before he was taken by the “Gobblers,” who are the source of the kidnapping of all the adolescents. During their adventure, Lyra and Panencounter all sorts of trouble, such as armored polar bears, the “cutting,” people without dæmons, and the seemingly attractive Ms. Coulter, who is more dangerous than she appears.
Throughout the book, there was a constant theme of perseverance. Lyra remained persistent, no matter how far she had to go to rescue her friend. Rodger had been her best friend for as long as she could remember. They shared a bond of strong love, and since they were both small children at the time, they played together all the time, just like they always have. When she first found out he had been captured, Lyra freaked out, asking everyone if they had seen him recently, and screaming his name, trying in vain to hear him return her calls.
Lyra traveled all the way to the far North for Rodger, and it took many difficulties just to get to the harsh ice lands. First of all, Lyra was kicked out of her home, and was almost killed by robbers. Then, she witnessed death after that gypsies found her. Luckily she knew the gypsies, so she was able to rely on them to keep her safe. However, if I were 11 years old, like Lyra was, I would be very scared, and maybe to frightened to go on. Two men were killed within feet from where she stood. Even for a grown person, that would be an immensely discouraging and haunting memory. I would want more than anything to be able to forget that moment and move on. Yet, Lyra continued on with the Gypsies, even after being a witness to murder.
In order to get to the North, Lyra had to first convince the leader of the Gypsies to let her go with a bunch of men on a dangerous expedition to save all the other children. This is no easy feat. Then Lyra and Pan had to spend months on a boat, bored and confined in a tiny cabin, and hardly ever allowed to see the sky. For me, not seeing sunlight for weeks on end, in a small, foul smelling cabin while seasick would be hell on Earth. We take sunlight for granted. And yet, Lyra and Pan keep on going! It’s astounding what they go through, just to save one boy. As I said before, this perseverance is shown time after time after countless time throughout the plot of the book.
When Lyra and Pan finally made it to the North, they had to escape the clutches of Ms. Coulter, and release her uncle from a prison protected by armored bears, who are possibly the most fearsome creatures throughout the land. They put up with freezing cold, fought with and against witches, rescued a building full of children from a fire, released a room full of trapped dæmons, got away from scientists who wanted to separate Lyra and Pan from each other, flied through the sky in a balloon, and had to overcome many other obstacles before finally rescuing Rodger. And then, even after their journey seemed complete, Rodger was taken away from Lyra and Pan for a final time, before being sacrificed.
Lyra almost gave up her life on countless occasions to save someone she cared about, and yet after being almost torn apart physically and mentally, Rodger was still stolen from her, just as she was about to succeed in bringing him back home. After being through such mental torture, and being shattered just as hope was finally allowing itself to filter itself back into Lyra’s life after being through so much, I would have excepted Lyra to have gone insane. She at least should have been depressed beyond measure, or maybe given up all hope and died in the icy tundra around her as soon as Rodger fell lifeless into her arms, but no. After being through the worst kind of pain that I can scarcely begin to imagine, Lyra and Pan stand up strong, follow their fears, and take off to follow the very man who killed Lyra’s best friend into a whole new existence, leaving their whole world behind them, and giving up everything they ever had. This courage and persistence overflows my heart with encouragement that anything is possible, and that if an 11-year-old girl can go to the North Pole and save tens of young lives, then I can easily pass my math test. Such trivial things don’t seem worth complaining about. If Lyra and Pan can endure for months in the cold, then I should be able to study one night without complaint.
In fact, Lyra and Pan were not the only ones who persisted through thick and thin. The children who were kidnapped kept trying again and again to escape their capturers. Instead of giving in, they fought to protect themselves and each other. Also, Lyra’s uncle, who was locked up behind bars and guarded by armored bears, still continued his studies, not matter how jailed he was. He didn’t give up his belief in what he was experimenting on. Ms. Coulter kept searching for Lyra, no matter where she went. Rodger never gave up hope in Lyra. These are all examples of persistence from the book, “The Golden Compass.”
Perseverance in our own lives is crutial. People who lack the physical and mental strength to endeavor never accomplish anything, and sometimes can become depressed or commit suicide, if things get really bad. New businesses can crash and burn, students fail out of school, relationships fall apart, and all other sorts of terror grips the parts of the world that lack inspiration to persevere. However, you can do anything if you put your mind to it. If you keep trying your hardest and refuse to be beaten down, you can do anything, no matter how daunting it seems at first. Don’t forget, you have perseverance at this very moment. It took you effort to read this paper! Just let that feeling grow and bigger accomplishments will follow.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Ms. Lucy
Ms. Lucy Zhanna McAtee
I used to be so shy it would be painful to watch. My mother would introduce me to one of her “friends from work” and my tongue would go stiff. I would halfway hide behind my mother’s legs and hope the office workers would refrain from addressing me directly.
I would also have a really hard time making friends at school, so I needed something to do during recess. I always loved to read but I had a hard time finding books that I liked. So, my mom took me to the library. She suggested that I find a nice looking librarian to talk to, then tell her what kind of books I wanted to read so she could get some for me. Mom assured me on many different occasions before we even got to the library that all librarians were really kind to all the kids.
When mom finally found a parking spot at the Aiea Library, she led me inside and pointed out the two children’s’ librarians on duty. Both were female, but one of them looked very old and the shape of her nose scared me. Instead I decided to ask the younger-looking, black haired woman to find me something in the children’s section.
As I timidly inched my way up to her desk with the nametag “Ms. Lucy” in big bronze letters sitting prominently on top of it, the librarian looked over her skinny spectacles at me. When I got into whispering range, she asked kindly (just like mom said she would), “Hello. What do you need help with?”
I knew I was suppose to whisper in the library, but my voice was so ridiculously soft that Ms. Lucy looked at me funny. “Excuse me? What did you say?”
“Ummm…” I tried to gather my thoughts and remember what I was here for. “A book?” I was proud of myself for forming two coherent words.
“What kind of book?” Ms. Lucy was very patient with me as I stood there for a while.
“Ummmmm… can I have one with magic in it?” Ms. Lucy smiled and stood up from behind her desk. She looked tall to me (but when you’re only 3 feet high every one looks tall). She walked over to the children’s section and quickly pulled out four different picture books, one after the other. She took the 3rd one from the pile and told me, “This one’s my favorite.” With a wink and an adoring smile she turned back to her desk.
I read the four books before my mom was done browsing through her adult fiction section, so I put the books back into the “return to shelves” basket and asked Ms. Lucy for a few more. She gladly helped me.
To my delight, mom and I continued to go to the library every week after that, and during each visit I would ask Ms. Lucy to help me find some good books. The piles she pulled for me grew rapidly, and soon I was taking twenty books home at a time. I never failed to finish them all before the week was over. Instead of sitting at the wooden benches and starting to read the massive pile of literature right after it was handed to me, instead I would sit in a chair opposite Ms. Lucy’s desk with the tower of pictures and words in my lap, and we would talk until my mom was done finding her novels.
Ms. Lucy and I got to know each other very well. She began to expect my visit on a weekly basis and knew both me and my brother by name. Ms. Lucy was a big, scary, intimidating adult, and she quickly became my first best friend. Ms. Lucy the librarian.
