DUE FRI 3/2 Personal Reflection

Write about a time that your pride had negative consequences (or related to that, your inability to forgive). You can also write about someone else or write about pride in another book.

When I was in 5th-6th grades I used to be a troublemaker. I would do lots of things that were unacceptable. In other words, some of the things I did got me in trouble with the teacher. My 6th grade teacher was a very interesting person, he would eat his lunch and other snacks in front of us as he was teaching the class.

Getting back to the question; It was a regular day, the sun was smiling, the birds singing and me about to get into trouble. We were at the park and there was a little stream of water that was going down the sidewalk. There were ants that were trying to cross it; to us a little stream of water is small, but to an ant its like a big roaring river. I was a mean little boy back then so I asked my friend for his eyeglasses. They were such a high prescription that when he put them on his eyes were three times the size. I took his glasses and started to burn the ants and watch them scurry all around. As I was doing that the principal of our school came over and told me that those are Gods creatures and to stop burning them. It was really fun to me and I liked to do it.

So that day when I got home I took the magnifying glass and started to burn the ants that had been peacefully going about their duties. Then I thought to myself; "maybe if I got some tissue and made the ant crawl all over it the maybe I could light it on fire." So that’s exactly what I did. As I was burning it my dad was watching me the whole time through the window. I was in big trouble, because when he came out you could see that he was ticked by the look on his face. I was in big trouble because I wasn't supposed to be playing with that type of stuff. In the end, after doing it again about three more times, and him seeing me; I got all of my things taken away, all because I was having fun burning things.

How was your pride, or the other person's, similar or different to that of Achilles?

I think that me and Achilles’ pride was some what similar, and we both had great consequences. Achilles got punished by Zeus and got shot in the heel by a poison arrow and died. For me, my dad is like Zeus; except he didn't punish me by shooting my heel; he punished me by taking away all of my prized possession which made it feel like as if I died.

DUE WED 2/28 Iliad Assignment

What was your opinion of Achilles before reading Book 9? Does it change after reading Book 9? Explain why or why not.

From what I had heard about Achilles, I thought that he was a very cool guy. He was fearless, not easy to kill, those types of things. Achilles seemed like a big hero to me. He was half god half man. But when I started reading the book I still thought he was cool because he sounded indestructable. But as I read on, I learned that he was killed by a poison arrow. I was so confused, I thought that he could not get killed. I thought, how could he have gotten killed. Mr. Jana then said that when he got dipped in the river, he got held by his heel. Since his heel didn't get dipped it was the one part of his body that didn't become indestructable. I really don't think that my opinions of Achilles have really changed. I still think that he is pretty cool, I think that even thought hes going to die I think that he's a very good fighter and. For him to be fighting on Agamemnons side and not fighting under his orders, I think that is ver cool. It shows that he somewhat likes to be independent.