Ola


 * __OTHER'S WRTITNG__**

A simile from //The Great Gatsby//, which depicts a vital point of the novel in which a kiss between the two main characters foreshadows and predicts what the future will bring. In this qoute, Daisy's character is forever transformed in Gatsby's mind, who chooses to follow through and kiss Daisy although he fears disappointment and the destruction of his fantasy of Daisy, which this kiss may otherwsie ruin forever. "Then he kissed her. At his lips' touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete."
 * __My favorite poetic device in literature is...__**

Derived from the novel, //Lolita//, in which the main character Humbert is confronted with, but refuses to accept his true, selfish, and sick desires behind kidnapping and depriving Lolita of her childhood."Unless it can be proven to me—to me as I am now, today, with my heart and my beard, and my putrefaction—that, in the infinite run it does not matter a jot that a North American girl child named Dolores Haze had been deprived of her childhood by a maniac, unless this can be proven (and if it can, life is a joke) I see nothing for the treatment of my misery but the melancholy and very local palliative of articulate art."
 * __My favorite characterization in literature is...__**

" The birdlike gestures are worn away to a mere picking and plucking her way between the tire rims and the sunflowers, between Coke bottles and milkweed, among all the waste and beauty of the world—which is what she herself was. All of our waste which we dumped on her and which she absorbed. And all of our beauty, which was hers first and which she gave to us." This quote, found in //The Bluest Eye//, is one of my favorite quotes from a novel because it is an intelligent and true to-today's-society conclusion about what prejudices against certain communities of people can do to an innocent human being, who starts off with so much potential, so much hope and desire for life, but runs into a society who's unwilling to negotiate. In an ironic sense, because society's views on beauty categorized Pecola as "ugly," she was able to make others feel beautiful.
 * __My favorite quote in literature is...__**

Elizabeth Bennet: Which of these painted peacocks is our Mr. Bingley? Charlotte Lucas: He's the one on the left. And on the right is his sister. Elizabeth Bennet: And the person with the quizzical brow? Charlotte Lucas: That is his good friend, Mr. Darcy. Elizabeth Bennet: He looks miserable, poor soul. Charlotte Lucas: Miserable he may be, but poor he most certainly is not. Elizabeth Bennet: Tell me. Charlotte Lucas: 10,000 a year and he owns half of Derbyshire. Elizabeth Bennet: The miserable half?
 * __My favorite dialogue in literature is...__**

From //Pride and Prejudice//, this dialogue between Elizabeth and Charlotte Lucas is one of my favorites. It's a humorous and up beat conversation that does a good job in emphasizing Elizabeth's sarcastic and bold character that I like to look up to.

The theme of redemption found in //The Kite Runner// because it helps in giving readers the idea that there is always room for change and it's never too late to say you are sorry and recognize your own faults through confrontation. In the //Kite Runner//, Baba says that a boy who doesn’t stand up for himself becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything. Throughout his childhood and life in Kabul, Amir struggles to stand up for himself, or anyone for that matter. However, as an adult, Amir recognizes how wrong he was and realizes that the only way to move forward in life without being burdened by regret and guilt, is to face his past, the mistakes he made, and do redeem himself by risking his life for another.
 * __My favorite theme in literature is...__**

__**MY OWN WORK**__

My favorite poetic device is definitely personification. Through personification an ordinary noun, such as a river, can hold much more meaning and come to life before the eyes of the readers. Personification gives words the ability to go outside of the box with human-like qualities that include the five senses. For instance, the dark river dashed down the mountain and roared as it dispersed into the body of water below. In this way, readers better envision a specific scene or mood that a character sees or feels at a specific point in any text. I would love to use personification to describe both Poland and found memories from my childhood, when the world seemed so big, and everythingn was good.
 * __My favorite poetic device, and one I would like to use is...__**

My favorite characterization of my own work is the characterization of my mom. " She is someone I'll always admire and look up to, someone who I have a hard time staying mad at, whose weary root beer eyes squint with every warm smile, revealing hidden evidence of exhaustian and laborous work from over the years, whose slender but rough hands have transformed into awkward curves, whose heart is so big and giving, that you'd hear it thumping with every beat in a room crammed with people." This characterization of my mom is a short, but very accurate description of who my mom is, how much she means to me, and how great of a role model she's been and will be for the rest of my life.
 * __My favorite characterization of my own is...__**

If I could write about any setting, I wouldn't hesitate in choosing Poland. Every year, my brother and I would go to Poland for entire summers and have the best time of our lives. The amazing memories we've made there, and hope to keep on making, shaped my brother's and my own values pertaining to culture, tradition, family, and true happiness. All of our family, but one aunt who lives here in Chicago, lives in Poland. For this reason, the three-month summers spent in Poland meant that much more, and honestly it's a beautiful beautiful place that I would do my best and paint a snippet of.
 * __A setting I would write about is...__**

An ongoing, more serious conflict that's been frequent and recent in my life, is the idea of people preaching one thing but once turned around and pertaining to them, say another. It bugs me when people have such strong words of wisdom to tell others who, for instance, struggle with society because they're interracially mixed or confused about religions, but then once it pertains to one of their own family members, they curl into a ball and go back on what they'd said. Maybe by writing about it, I could let it be known how much it bothers me, and how angry it can make me.
 * __A conflict I would address is...__**

If I would have to choose a theme to write about, I would pick to write about life as a bunch of stepping stones you choose to take and learn from on your own, one by one. I feel that this theme relates to multiple individuals around the world, especially teenagers whose parents feel either scared of giving freedom to, or give too much freedom to too early. In my mind, it's one thing to take someone's word about life, and another to actually experience and face life's challenges and curveballs more so on your own.
 * __A theme I would like to write about is...__**

** Forbidden Desires ** “Psst…..psssssssst... Hanna, stand up already. Hanna, what are you doing? Can you not hear me or something? Everyone’s staring at you like you’ve sinned real bad, you know that right?” Although I could hear my little sister Julie’s whispers, her voice was faint, as if behind a wall of fluffy foam or from under the covers of a soft bed. I had too much going on in my mind, so much had happened so quickly, so many emotions had been sparked in the past months, I didn’t realize I was still kneeling in the yellow padded phew with my hands interlocked and head slouched downward against them. I felt numb, drained, and exhausted. But out of all the chaos going on in my life, my attention focused on the most recent thing that I had come to know on our annual family camping weekend out in Wisconsin. My Aunt Molly had trusted me enough to tell me something that if I’d heard from anyone other than her, I would never have believed it. Up to this point, everything seemed so black and white with everyone in my family except for me. Aunt Molly, with her husband, my uncle Tommy, as well as two babies, baby Alex and baby Logan, was by far the happiest, most spontaneous, and funniest person ever. I always prayed to God to give me even a snippet of the life she had and I wouldn’t ask for more. But what she revealed to me that weekend changed my perspective on a lot of things. It was a cold and ugly Saturday morning, the sky matching the color of my worn out grey converse. As we pulled up to the familiar petite camping houses that speckled the camp grounds, Aunt Molly tugged on the hood of my faded sweater. Turning around, Aunt Molly asked, “Hanna, are you okay? Is there anything you want to talk to me about….maybe in private? ” For an instant, I wanted so much to have the guts to tell her what was going on inside of me. I wanted to tell her and the rest of my phony family I was done with shutting my mouth, living up to their expectations, and masking my feelings about one too many things. Instead, I replied “no no, I’m perfectly fine, just tired and bummed out about the weather is all.” Sensing, like a metal detector there was no going around, that what I had said was not true, Aunt Molly held my eyes with a glance that could only mean one thing; we were going to have a “talk.” Under the luscious trees of the forest, which drooped in all kinds of awkward ways down towards the river, I sat on the giant, moss engulfed rock that waited for my return perfectly still every year. I drew my knees into my chest, criss-crossed my arms, and nuzzled my chin into them, taking in a deep gulp of fresh air. Distant were the fake laughters of my father and uncle, distant were the things that had driven me away from happiness, but most importantly, distant was the one person I’d run into on the 4th of July, but forced myself to let go for reasons I thought over and over every breathing morning, distant was Jayden. Staring out into the river that danced and swiveled passed the campsite, I felt a rush of emotions coming back and ripping off the scab that had formed over my wounded muscle of a heart for the hundredth time. If only I could bring myself to break free from the tight grip my family, especially my father, had on me, if only I could turn back time and tell Jayden how he made me feel, how much I needed him right now, how much I’d loved him, and still do. If only, like this river, I could somehow keep on dancing, satisfying both my family and Jayden, and not having to choose just one. If only. Just then, Aunt Molly came into view in the far corner of my eye. She sat down next to me, told me that she knew I wasn’t telling her everything, that I was going through something difficult, that she could see the pain I tried to hide in my eyes, like a dark red wine stain on white cotton. Grabbing a hold of my hand, she told me that she wanted to reveal something she’s kept secret from everyone for far too long, but something she wanted to only tell me and have me keep to myself. She started off by telling me she remembered when she was my age, how exciting and open the world seemed to be, and how her dreams reached out beyond the stars. She said she felt invincible, that when someone told her she couldn’t, she’d prove them wrong. So, when she met David, a Jewish boy who caught her eye at a party, she didn’t think twice about how far things could go. “The funny thing was,” she said shaking her head, a smile making its way into her lips, “that I knew what I was getting myself into, with our family incapable of ever even grasping such a outrageous idea of little baby Molly would dare think anything of it.” In just one month, Aunt Molly and the Jewish boy were inseparable, sneaking around their families who forbade everything they were doing. But as the lies and made-up stories began to seep out and wobble, Aunt Molly’s mom was onto something. She’d followed Molly and the Jewish boy into the park one Saturday morning, and was in shock and in disbelief to see Molly and the boy giggling, holding each other close, and worst of all kiss. The kiss proved too much for her mother to handle, and when Aunt Molly came home that afternoon, her mother confronted her about everything, cursing at her this way and that. “Are you out of your mind? What has this boy done to you? Do you know what would happen if it was Papa that saw you with the boy?! Well do you?! You must put an end to it and do it now!” She went on to call Aunt Molly a “selfish slut,” but swore that never shall what happened that day or anytime before ever be of knowledge to her dad. Aunt Molly’s story shined a new light on who I thought she was. I found someone I could totally relate to, someone who understood me. And I knew just then what I would decide to do when we came back home after asking her one last question. “One more thing Aunt Molly, I asked. Do you still think about him today?” Aunt Molly answered, “there’s not a day that goes by when I wonder had things been different, I love him, I always have.”