Growth and Change

Greetings, all! This week's top essay comes from Matt, who wrote a great piece on how dedication on the sports field and the responsibilities that come from being an older sibling have shaped him into the person he is today. If you've ever had to persevere through an athletic slump, or have found your home life suddenly very different with the addition of a younger brother or sister, you should definitely check out Matt's essay.

SIGNIFICANT EVENTS IN MY LIFE

I believe two of my best qualities, perseverance and responsibility, have developed through two significant events in my life. I have learned to persevere through a decision I made myself to be involved in sports for most of my life. I have learned responsibility through my home life and more specifically because I am the oldest of three children in my family.

Being involved in sports most of my life has had a significant impact on my life. Sports, and the coaches involved in them, have taught me to never give up and if you keep trying, you will eventually get it right. Also, I have learned that if you work hard enough, it will pay off in the end. One example where this came true was when I was playing town baseball in the major league last year. I was in a bit of a hitting slump and was getting anxious to get on a role. My team had lost our first two games and in the third game we were down by one run in the bottom of the 7^th inning, which is extra innings in little league baseball. There was a man on first base when it was my turn at the plate. On the third pitch, I hit the ball deep into centerfield, over the fence, and it was gone. It was a walk-off homerun that won the first game of the season for our team! Everyone was so happy for me and I can’t remember ever feeling so good.

I have also learned from being involved in sports that there can be many highs and all too many lows which you must be able to accept and overcome. This was also true on the day I hit the walk-off homerun. Although I was on one of my biggest highs at the end of the game, earlier in that same game I had sat out the first three innings because I hadn’t been hitting too well so I was felling pretty low. Little did I know that later on in that game I was going to become a hero and win the game for the team. I am glad that I persevered and did not give up.

The birth of my brother and then my sister has also changed my life significantly in many different ways. I believe having a younger brother and sister has made me a much more responsible person than if I was not first born. I was only four years old when I became the oldest of three so I had to help my mother and father starting at a very young age. Since that time my parents have depended on me to help take care of my siblings. I knew at an early age that I could not be too needy or demanding because my brother and sister needed the attention more than I did. Today I babysit for my parents whenever they go out for dinner or have some errands to do. Being a big brother helped me become the responsible person that I am. Being first born and accepting responsibility is not all that bad. For example, I get to do many things before my brother and sister can such as mowing the lawn with the ride-on tractor, going to work with my dad, earning some money babysitting, and getting to go out with my friends. Being responsible has let me do a lot of fun things at a young age because my parents trust me.

Participating in sports and being the oldest in my family has changed me in many positive ways. All of my friends would be so much different than who they are now if these events did not happen. I would not be in the same circles so I would have totally different friends. I feel I have made so many great friends who share the same interests as me. Perseverance and responsibility that I have learned through these events have also helped me to do well in school which is also very important to me. Being the oldest has led to me being in charge a lot more than if I was second or third born in my family which I also like. I am very happy with who I am today and I would not want to change even if I had a choice. These two significant events in my life have had very positive effects on me.

Mona Lisa Smile

Greetings, all! We recently took a look at Leonardo Da Vinci's famous painting, the Mona Lisa. As I mentioned in class, she's over 500 years old, and has been capturing people's imaginations for quite some time. Is she really pregnant?. Is she really smiling? Is she really...Leonardo Da Vinci? After taking a good long look at Mona in class and at home, student wrote about their own ideas on who she could be, based on their observations.

The top essays this week come from Regan and Brendan. Here is Regan's take on Mona...

The Mona Lisa probably could be called the world's most famous painting, created by the world's most remembered painter, Leonardo Da Vinci. Thousands of questions have been asked about her, and the only person who could answer them is long gone. However, that doesn't mean that people cannot make informed hypotheses about who Mona was and how she got painted.

When you look at Mona, the first thing you notice is her face and then her smile. That leads you to ask, "It that a smile on Mona's face?" To me she has an expression of amusement on her face and a sort of twinkle in her eye. When I look at Mona, I see not a smile on her face, but a smirk. The way she sits it's almost perky, yet she seems relaxed, or comfortable like she's right at home. Her eyes are squinted at the end, not at the inner sides, making it look like she is smiling. Her mouth is at ease at the sides but to me the overall effect is a smirk. The folding of the hands makes her seem as if she is hiding something. Before she relaxed, Mona could have been frightened to sit for Leo, so to make her feel less tense, he made her laugh, resulting in the smirk.

Mona's relationship with Leonardo is also a mystery, although he could have met her off the street for all we know. I doubt that is true, because there are clues in the painting that suggest against it. For example, Mona is wearing a very simple dress and back in the early 1500s they wore very elegant, elaborate clothing out in public. Mona's outfit is very simple a long dress, light overcoat, and a veil. The clothing signifies that she was at her home, or a place she considers to be a home. So, she could be the wife or future wife of Da Vinci. Another element to back this up is that she is wearing a veil, one that is not particularly easy to notice. Veils are traditionally worn by the bride at weddings. The neutral colors that she is wearing could mean that she is mourning something, maybe the death of a loved on. There's one other possibility and that is she was his mother, but I think Mona looks too young.

A final aspect that is needed to be looked at is the background. What I see is a pasture with fields, lakes, rivers and waterfalls, tall forests and grassy plains. Nature is usually a form of peace. My guess is that she was a woman ahead of her times. The background says to me, "Mona liked her alone time to think, be peaceful, and read. She cherished her independence." Another possibility is that Da Vinci saw nature as beauty, and he wanted to put two beauties together. A last notice I took was that the background was a tiny bit blurred. Perhaps this meant that Da Vinci wanted to give every detail about Mona and just focus on her.

During the time it took to write this essay on Mona, I realize that there is so much I can learn (or make an informed assessment about) by taken ten, maybe fifteen minutes to really look at the world around you. Although some questions may never be answered, we can all agree that Mona is an amazing work of art, and some captivating talent.

Here is Brendan's...

Leonardo Da Vinci was one of the world's most famous painters of all time. He was famous for several masterpieces, such as "The Last Supper" and "The Vitruvian Man", but his most famous painting is the "Mona Lisa". Nobody today knows who exactly "Mona" is; I believe she was a royal friend of Da Vinci's and he wanted to make a painting of her so he could always remember he. Another of my theories is that Da Vinci hired some poser to sit for him to draw, and she looks very elegant but is only wearing the clothes that Da Vinci told her to wear for the occasion.

The smile? That been the question for the past half millennium. Is Mona smiling or not? If so, why is she smiling? That's the other question. Is she smiling because she thinks Da Vinci is a funny looking man? Could it be that she thought of a joke that she enjoys? It might be that the artist in front of her has something stuck in his teeth but Mona doesn't have the guts to tell him about it so she just smiles and stares. Maybe it's because Da Vinci is paying her to do it. As for if she's smiling, it looks as if she is sort of half smiling. I think it's so hard to tell for some peple because Mona has her head turned a little bit, but not enough that she's staring right at hom because she still has to look at him from the side of her eye. That is what I think causes the illusion of her smile possibly being a smirk.

Some other questions about Leonardo Da Vinci's masterpiece are what she is sitting or leaning on and another is what is behind her. As for what she is supporting herself on, I think she is slightly leaning on the rail of a balcony. I believe in this theory because to the left of her you can slightly make out the image of a rail and an ornate sphere resting on that. Also, to her right you can see that her arm is resting on something that looks as if it is probably a railing. I also think it could be a balcony she is on because you can see what looks like rivers, trees, bridges, and possibly an island behind and under her.

If Mona actually was a friend of Da Vinci's then she must have been decently wealthy and well pampered. This is obvious because she is wearing a fine robe or gown that looks silky and expensive. Also, she has very fragile and pampered looking hands. If you look closely at her shirt, you can see that she is wearing a shawl around her neck that looks hand crafted and very light weight (and expensive). Finally, she wears a very faint, almost invisible veil over her head. All this makes Mona seem like a very important or possibly royal person, which would fit perfectly as the friend of one of the greatest artists of all time.

The Mona Lisa is truly one of the greatest works of art in all of history. Da Vinci did a spectacular job. From the lifelines of the portrait's face, to the careful sketches of embroidery on her shirt, to the mystery of what it is that lies behind her, and to the always changing smile, the Mona Lisa might be the most appreciated work of art ever.

If you're still curious about Mona, and would like to learn more about her, I highly recommend the Louvre's website, which has a great interactive exhibit. It's the next best thing to hopping a jet and flying to Paris! Enjoy.

Personal Picks: Swordbird and Big Mouth and Ugly Girl

I just finished reading two books, both of which I picked up on recommendations. Swordbird is a fun fantasy that a student recommended and lent to me (thank you Jennifer!), and Mrs. Pratt (who provides me with a lot of my picks), sent Big Mouth and Ugly Girl my way. I enjoyed both of them.

If you're into swords and sorcery, especially if you're a fan of Brian Jacque's Redwall series, Swordbird might be just up your alley. It tells the story of two tribes of birds, the Sunrise cardinals and the Bluewingle bluejays, who are currently at war, but also threatened by a greater enemy, the tyrannical hawk Turnatt, who plans to take over their world. Turnatt has an unpleasant taste for the eggs of other birds, which he believes will make him live forever, and has also enslaved a great number of creatures to build his stronghold, Fortress Glooming, for him. With an army of crows at his command, he casts a dark shadow over the forest of Stone Run. The one hope that the bluejays and cardinals have is a mythical being known as Swordbird, who defeated Turnatt in the past. The story follows a pair of young birds and a small slave bird called Miltin as they attempt to find a way to call Swordbird and defeat Turnatt.

Nancy Yi Fan (who's only thirteen!) is able to create some wonderful imagery. The vision of birds swooping and diving as they duel, tiny swords clutched in their claws, is great. One scene I enjoyed in particular involves a massive food fight, where a mob of Turnatt's henchmen (henchbirds?) are driven away by a barrage of pies, nuts, soup, berries, and other foodstuffs when they attempt to storm a traveling theater.

The only flaws I found in the book were a fairly predictable plot and some clunky writing. Considering Fan's age when she wrote this, though, these are forgivable. Not many people can claim to have a published bestseller before they enter high school! I hope that she continues to write and grow as an author. Overall, I'd give Swordbird an eight out of ten.

Big Mouth and Ugly Girl, by Joyce Carol Oats, was a book I had in my sights for quite some time. The Frolio book club read it last year, and I remember asking Mrs. Pratt about it. She had nothing but good things to say about it, so I picked it up two weeks ago. I know a book's good when I rip through it in about two or three days. I think I was stirring my spaghetti on the stove one night while reading BMandUG in my other hand.

BMandUG deals with something we've all read about in the paper or seen on television: school bomb threats. The book tells the story of a junior in high school, Matt Donaghy, who is surprised one day in study hall when a pair of police officers come in and escort him away. It turns out that Matt has been accused of threatening to blow up his school, Columbine style, after someone overhears a joke he makes in the cafeteria. The school administration, forced to act out of concern for the students' safety, have to treat Matt's "threat" seriously, and he finds his life turned upside down as things spin rapidly out of control. Many of his friends cut off contact with him, and it appears that no one will stand up for him: no one except for Ursula Riggs, the headstrong star of the girl's basketball team who happens to have overheard what he said during lunch, and knows that he isn't serious.

Ursula steps in to speak for Matt's innocence, even though she doesn't know him, and he is eventually exonerated. I found this surprising: the bomb threat incident doesn't take up much of the story. Instead, Oats focuses her story more on what happens after the incident. She takes you into the aftermath, and shows how little things like a lie, an unwise word in the wrong situation, or gossip, can tear people's lives and communities apart.

Strong points of the story? There were several. First, I enjoyed how the book swapped narratives. Basically, Ursula and Matt takes turns telling the story. One will narrate in one chapter, and then the story will switch to the other character in the following chapter. You end up seeing the story from two points of view which begin to overlap more as the friendship between Matt and Ursula develops. I also liked how the book hits home. It was easy to imagine something similar happening in my own home town or school, and I truly empathized not only with Matt, but also his teachers, principal, and everyone else who gets dragged into the fiasco.

Overall? Great read- I really enjoyed it. I'd give it an 8.5 out of ten.