Joey+O


 * My favorite poetic device in literature has always been irony. I have always liked irony because I think it takes a truly bright person to fully grasp it but an even brighter person to be able to create it. My favorite example or irony is from the play "Macbeth." I thought it was truly brilliant how the witches gave the three apparitions to give Macbeth to give him false confidence. He was told that to fear macduff, that no man born of woman could kill him, and that he wouldn't need to worry until the trees started walking towards the kingdom. These things seemed false but actually were all true. Macduff killed Macbeth because he was born from a c section, and the soldiers coming towards the castle were wearing camouflage so it looked like the trees were walking towards the castle. Irony at its best.


 * My favorite characterization in literature is from the poem "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley. Throughout the entire poem, the speaker characterizes himself as a person who will not let adversity bring him down. He pretty much says that he's been to Hell and back and has done a lot of things in his life that he regrets, but at the end of the day he is the "master of his fate." No matter what life throws at you, you still are in control of your life, and you can overcome an adversity that comes your way if you believe you can. I love this sonnet because not only does it characterize the speaker so perfectly, but it also has a great message. Despite the hardships we experience, we are all still "captains of our souls."

Invictus:

I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.

 * My favorite quote in literature is a quote from the author George Elliot. He said "There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and healed, to have despaired and have recovered hope." Although this quote probably doesn't seem to be extraordinary to most people, it has always held a special place in my heart. When I first came across it, I was dealing with a really big loss in my life, and i was really having trouble dealing with it. This quote let me know that what I was feeling was perfectly normal and that one day i would recover hope. And I did.


 * My favorite dialogue in literature is the dialogue between Rahim Kahn and Baba in __The Kite Runner__. I liked the scene when they were talking about Amir and Hassan while Amir was listening on the other side of the door. I particularly liked this dialogue because it was a great example of foreshadowing and also had a lot of meaning. It was foreshadowing when Baba said that sometimes it felt like Hassan was more like his son than Amir. I also liked the when Baba said "A boy who stands up for himself grows up to be a man who can't stand up to anything." I love this quote because I see the validity in it. This was also a great example of foreshadowing, but Amir proves that quote wrong when he finally stops being a coward and does what's right.


 * My favorite theme in literature is from the book __1984.__ I have always been a fan of futuristic themes because I think it is interesting to see how people think the world is going to turn out. In __1984__, George Orwell depicts the future as one where people have lost all of their personal freedoms and everybody has conformed into a society full of routine and boringness. Everybody says that we need to study history to learn from our mistakes, but I think we can just as well learn a few things from books like __1984__ so that our future doesn't become like the book's setting's present. Learning to save our future from examples from the future.....paradoxical, I know!


 * A favorite line of my own writing is about my brother. In one of the poems for my poetry folder, I said "That is why life is so grim/ He can live without me, yet i cannot live without him." I love this line because it rhymes, but it also has certain truth to it and is really deep. At times it seems like I depend on my brother a lot more than he depends on me.


 * My favorite poetic device of my own was a metaphor about my brother that i wrote for my poetry folder sophomore year. In this poem i said "Justin is a jellyfish/ Misunderstood and underestimated/ His uniqueness welcomes you in/ Yet he is one of the deadliest creatures on the planet." I love this metaphor because it is really unique but at the same time entirely true. Although a lot has changed between him within the past two years, I still believe that his one unique person, and I still believe he's the deadliest person on the planet.


 * My favorite characterization of my own was in a set of haikus I wrote about my brother and I. It characterizes our relationship really well. One of my favorite haikus that i think perfectly characterizes our relationship is "Forever brothers/ We are complete opposites/ Yet we get along." I think this characterizes us well because we are complete opposites in almost every way, but at the end of the day I know I can count on him. He is like one of my best friends.


 * My favorite dialogue of my own is in the poem "A Bond Unbroken" which I wrote about my brother. I particularly like the dialogue in my second stanza: "When I'm weak, you're strong for me/ When I'm scared, you're brave for me/ You are there for me when I need you most/ And you are there for me when I don't/ I am your keeper and you are mine." I like this because I am telling my brother all of the things that he is to me. I wrote this as a sophomore 2 years ago, but it is nice to see that through the years, I still see my brother the same way.


 * A setting I would write about is, like i said before, a futuristic setting. I want to write about this because as an author, you have an extraordinary amount of creative freedom. The future is unknown, so you have the ability to make it whatever you want. I'd like to write in a future setting because i could create an entire new world purely off of my imagine. Of course, it would require a great amount of detail and creativity.


 * A conflict I would write about is the death of a hero. In my opinion, there is nothing more tragic in a story than when a hero dies. The sense of hope is replaced with a great deal of despair. I think there is a certain beauty in this despair, and finding hope in people who we never thought we would before has beauty in it too. I'd like to write a conflict where the hero dies, but his death only awakens the heroism in others.


 * A theme I would like to address is the theme of good vs evil. My entire life i have been infatuated with the battle between good and evil. As a kid, I was your typical superhero nerd, but to this day, the idea of what it means to be a hero still has a big influence on me. Of course the heroes and villains in my story wouldn't be as obvious as Batman and the Joker, but my story will have both good and bad guys with the traits i think heroes and villains possess. And in my story, the hero will win because good should always overcome evil.

Short Story: "The Journey"

To the normal person, it was just a typical September day, cold, windy, and unforgiving, but to Adam Scott, it was the day everything changed. The previous day Adam had won yet another award for his advancements in the medical field, but this meant nothing to him because he knew deep down that he was on the brink of something much greater: the discovery of his lifetime. And although he was terrified of accepting the award in front of thousands of people, he’d rather do it one hundred times over before doing what he was planning on doing today. He was going to ask Jane to marry him. Jane was his everything. She was his inspiration, his motivation, and his driving force to be the best version of himself he could be. It wasn’t the possibility of Jane denying his engagement proposal that terrified Adam, but rather the fact that she deserved to be asked in a way worth remembering, a way that no other woman has been asked before because Jane was special. With one last self-pep talk, there was no more time for hesitation. Walking into their house, Adam calls her name, but there is no answer, only the muffled sounds of something coming from the bedroom. Curious, Adam opens the bedroom door to see Jane and an unknown figure scurrying to get dressed. In this situation, there were a lot of violent paths that Adam could have chosen, but he chose none of them. He didn’t partly because he wasn’t that type of person, but also because there was no time to. Once Jane was dressed, she left without a word and never came back. Losing somebody is always a hard thing to handle, but losing somebody who you love and planned on having a future with is even harder. Adam was distraught. He didn’t know who to be or what to do anymore. She had taken his hope in people and happiness and replaced it with bitterness and depression. Adam’s friends tried to help him with their cliché advice like, “Don’t worry Adam because time heals everything,” and, “You were too good for her anyways,” but Adam had already accepted his depression, and once you’ve accepted that you aren’t meant to be happy, there is no going back. Without the girl whose beauty that had motivated, inspired, and drove him, Adam had nothing. The awards stopped rolling in, and funding for his big discovery was cancelled due to lack of activity and progression (Since the Jane incident, Adam decided to take a few months off). Now, the only thing that Adam had to his name was a hole in his heart and the realization that happiness was not in his future. Adam’s life became very routine. Most days he would wake up, go to the liquor store, drink, stay at home by himself, drink, go to the bar, drink, come home, and drink himself to sleep. In fact, most of his friends would argue that he spent more of his day intoxicated than sober. But this was his way of dealing with everything, adjustment without improvement. He had fallen into a routine, but all of that changed one day when a little old man limped his way over to Adam at the bar and sat in the seat right next to him. “I know you…you’re Adam Scott! You’re a local hero!” said the old man, frighteningly happy. “I’m not that guy anymore. I’m nobody’s hero,” Drunkenly replied Adam. “What’s wrong with you, son? It seems like you’re spark has gone out.” said the old man. “Maybe it has. Maybe it hasn’t. Who even cares? I had my chance at happiness and she left me…no reason I should even have a spark anymore.” said Adam bitterly. “Is that what you think Mr. Scott, that your shot at happiness is gone? You are sadly mistaken, my friend. There is so much happiness around you, and since you refuse to believe in it on your own free will, then you’ve left me no choice but to force it upon you. You do not know the true meaning of happiness; you take it for granted. When you wake up, your journey will begin. Your destination is true happiness, but I must warn you that many have been in your shoes, yet not a single soul has yet to find it. Hopefully you are different.” said the old man with a certain smile on his face. Partly because he was drunk and partly because there was no possible way this was really happening, Adam laughed hysterically. Then, he passed out right there at the bar. When Adam woke up, he was in a place that he recognized but hadn’t been in quite some time: the hospital. It all happened so quickly. “Quick Adam, get dressed and sterilized. This boy needs help right away, and you’re the only one who can help.” Adam didn’t know what to do; it had been so long and this isn’t who he was anymore, but he had no choice. This kid’s life was in Adam’s hands. The surgery was brutal and took a long time, but it was a surprising success. This boy was going to live because of Adam. It was at this point that Adam had done something that he had not done in months: he smiled. But this smile was short-lived because everything around him began to move, and before he knew it, he was in a place that looked oddly like his house. It was as if he was a ghost watching his past but could do nothing about it. All he could do was sit there and watch as the strange figure passionately took Jane’s clothes off. And then he saw himself and how pathetic he looked balling his eyes out while Jane walked out of his life forever without saying a single word, and suddenly that joy he felt in the hospital was once again replaced with sorrow and hopelessness. Then, just like before, everything began to move and Adam was in a completely different setting. He was a member of a crowd of the Nobel Peace Prize Awards. All of a sudden, the crowd went silent, and a voice came over the speakers. “Now accepting the award for outstanding excellence in the medical field, Adam Scott with his discovery of the cure for breast cancer.” “Could that really be him standing up there accepting that award? It couldn’t be, that man is way too happy,” thought Adam. But surely it was him, Adam had never felt more proud in his life, and that smile once again returned to his face. But just as he was adjusting to this new world he was thrown in, his surroundings began to shake; however, this time, Adam wasn’t planning on going anywhere. He yelled out, “Old man, the reason that nobody has ever found true happiness through your journey is because your journey is flawed!” Suddenly everything stopped shaking and Adam was in a blank white room with nothing but the smiling old man. “Flawed you say?” said the old man smiling, “And how do you figure that?” “The reason that everybody gets lost in your journey is because they think of happiness as a destination. We are always thinking that someday we will be happy. That someday we will get that car, or job or that person that fixes everything. But now I see that happiness is a mood. It’s a condition, not a destination. It’s like being tired or hungry, it’s not permanent. It comes and goes and that’s okay.” Said Adam with a spark in his eyes that was absent for months. The old man was silent for a while, and then he said “So it’s okay to be a little miserable every now and then, even when we have great things in our life? And to that, Adam said, “Is it okay to be a little hungry every now and then?” The old man never looked so proud in his life, and he said to Adam, “My boy, you have reached the destination of true happiness because, unlike the others, you realized that the journey in itself is the destination. Consider this your second chance at life, and this time, live it the right way.” Instantly, Adam blacked out. When he woke up, he was laying down where he had passed out at the bar, and he could have sworn that he saw the old man walk out the door. Six months later…. “Now accepting the award for outstanding excellence in the medical field, Adam Scott with his discovery of the cure for breast cancer.” Adam stood up there proudly and as happy as ever while he was accepting his Nobel Peace Prize. Before the Jane incident, it turned out that he was a lot closer to his big discovery than he thought. After all the “congratulations” and “well dones,” only one other figure besides Adam remained in the hall, Jane. “Wow Adam, congratulations. This is a really big deal. I really miss you, and I thought that maybe we could grab a cup of coffee and start over where we left off” What Adam did next was actually very common for him these days. He smiled. Then, without saying a word, turned around, walked away, and never said a word to Jane again.