Utopia flag and map

Since I was unable to post my flag and map on my blog I will be handing them in paper

The past couple of weeks.

I don’t really like having a week to week summary on my blog because I find it gets kind of boring and no one really gets anything out of it. So, I just like summing up key points that have happened in the past couple of weeks.

 These past couple of weeks have been very stressfull because of the amount of work that I have been asigned (not only in english) but all my classes as a whole. What makes things even worse is that I am the type of person who procrastinates so, adding on to my stress. On the plus side, I have finished my ISU and I think it is quite superb. I am very happy its done because this is what we’ve been working towards the whole semester. Also, I have to say I was quite upset with Mustapha Murray last week. The whole week he told me that our Brave New World test was going to be on monday June 2nd, but he decided to change it to friday the 30th. He told us that it was going to be on friday, thursday. Since I had not yet finished the book, I was very scared and didn;t know what type of essay question to expect for test. So all in all, I ended up reading brave new world in one night. It actually ended up being a pretty good novel. It was a pretty easy read and it kept me interested.

Lately I have been having a lot of trouble with edublogs, and Im quite happing that my blogging days will soon be over. Somehow edublogs has managed to change my password, so I had to retrieve a new one, this delaying my ability to post my utopia project. So hopefully I will not lose marks because of edublogs.

Yan Lee

Thank you Edublogs for being so great.

Well, for the past couple of days I have had great trouble accesing my edublog account. For some reason it would not let me reach my dashboard and this made me very mad. Last week I posted all of my animal farm projects, yet only three of them showed up as being posted. This made me very frustrated and for now I am upset at mr. edublog, until further notice.

Late Modern Anglais.

For those who are really intrigued by the history of english literature, here is my part of the presentation we did on late modern english. Late modern english.

Charles Dickens.

This is a very long biography of Charles Dickens, take what you want from it. Charles Dickens 1812- 1870 “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o’clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.”- Charles John Huffman Dickens was born on February 7^th, 1812 in the coastal town of Portsmouth in southern England( which is now known as the Dickens birthplace museum). He was the second of eight children and the son of Elizabeth née Barrow (1789-1863) and John Dickens (c.1785-1851), a naval clerk- Charles’ family moved around a lot due to their economical standpoint and this eventually led to his father’s imprisonment in 1824. His father was imprisoned for three months for debt in the Marshalsea prison. In these times it was custom for the family to go to prison with the father but Charles stayed behind and worked to support his family. At the age of 12 he was working in a blacking warehouse pasting labels on boxes. Later on in that year, Charles began to attend Wellington House Academy where he would begin his education. His rough childhood days were really what marked him and this would have a big impact on his years to come. He was rudely introduced to the world of the working poor, where child labor was extensive and few if any adults spared a kind word for many abandoned or orphaned children. Many of his future characters like Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, and Philip Pirrip would be based on his own experiences. The appalling working conditions, long hours and poor pay typical of the time were harsh. Some even  considered him  to be a spokesman of the time  for the poor. He definitely brought much awareness to their troubles, their oppression and their overall struggle.  - Later on in life, Charles would encounter many jobs such as : a clerk,  a parliamentary news reporter, editor, and a stenographer. This just many small factors and experiences that would mold him into the famous writer he was yet to become. - Dickens’ first book which was titled: Sketches by Boz (Boz being a pseudonym Dickens’ would write under) was published in 1836- which proved to be a very exciting year for Dickens. He married a women named Catherine Hogarth who he would go on to have ten children with, many of which died at birth or did not live to be very old.  - Over the next couple of decades Dickens would go on to write novels that would stun readers not only in Victorian times, but his novels are still around at this present day. Some of his popular novels include:- A Christmas Carol- A message from the sea- A tale of two cities- Oliver Twist- Nicolas Nickleby  - Hard Times- David Copperfield- The Pickwick PapersThese are just a few of his popular novels. He had over 50 works to his name that ranged from fiction, non-fiction and short stories.  - Charles Dickens was regarded as Victorian England’s most beloved and distinctive novelist. His popularity has diminished little since his death and he still  is one of the best known and most read of English authors. At least 180 motion pictures and TV adaptations based on his works help confirm his success. - Dickens novels were among other things, works of social commentary. He was a fierce spokesman of the poverty and social stratification of Victorian society. Most of his novels revolved around images of poverty and crime and this was explored through his characters and scenes which would usually contrast with the social truths he would reveal. For example in Oliver Twist, Dickens paints the portrait of a young boy who is forced into poverty and he would conclude the novel by making it so that Oliver Twist ends up being the lost nephew of an upper class family. - Dickens’s writing style is regarded as being “florid” and “poetic” with strong comic touch. He would often use his rich imagination, sense of humor and detailed memories to enliven his fictional works. - Charles Dickens was a well known personality and his novels were vastly popular during his lifetime and even in ours. Dickens would always stride to write a great story and to do so he experimented with different themes, characterizations and genres. He was an author who was ahead of his time and his immense popularity due to his superb writing skills gained him an unthinkable amount of popularity. He wrote during the Victorian era yet his novels still remain popular today. Literary critics have their controversial views about Dickens’ work because they believe that his sentimentality blunts his social analysis. His novels would start off strong yet always end in a very heart warming manner which was contradicting what Dickens was in fact trying to show. - Charles Dickens past away in 1870 at the age of 58 in Gad’s Hill place. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.

By the way.

This whole time, I have yet to mention anything about ms. Orr. Ms. Orr is Mr. Murrays T.A, and she seems like a pretty cool cat. She is currently teaching us about the history of english literature and I find it quite interesting. Hopefully she will keep bringing new ideas to the classroom in the same way she has been presenting them: in a very fun manner.

P.S. If you are reading all of my latest blogs Mr. Murray, all of the dates are wrong on them. They were posted a long time ago.

The rules of fight club.

I recently saw the movie fight club which was originaly a novel written by Chuck Palahniuk and I thought it would be appropriate to post the rules of fight club on my blog. Blogging is not only a sport, its a lifestyle.

#1 – The first rule of Fight Club is, you do not talk about Fight Club.

#2 – The second rule of Fight Club is, you DO NOT talk about Fight Club.

#3 – If someone says stop, goes limp, taps out, the fight is over.

#4 – Two guys to a fight.

#5 – One fight at a time.

#6 – No shirts, no shoes.

#7 – Fights will go on as long as they have to.

#8 – If this is your first night at Fight Club, you have to fight.

And its been a long, long time since I’ve posted. But Touchdown brought me round again to find, that I must post more often.

I know its been very, very long since my last post, and I guess I’ve kind of neglected my blog. It seems a lot more practical and useful then I make it out to be and I really must keep up with my posts. So from know on I will try my best to post all of my work on my blog and to try to write atleast one post per week.

           To recap the last couple of months, they have been quite interesting. For a while english class was really a breeze. Mr. Murray would lecture, we would copy down notes and things were flowing smoothly, and we finally finished Macbeth- which turned out to be quite an interesting play actually. I also finished my ISU book a very long time ago: The remains of the day by Kazuo Ishiguro, but I have yet to come up with a thesis for my novel and I will discuss this with Mr. Murray.

          A couple of weeks ago, Mr. Murray really decided to start loading us with work. I have no problem doing work but I mean Mr. Murray really gave us a lot of work. We had debates, papers, plays and journal questions all at the same time. This kind of stressed me out, but I took it one thing at a time and I was able to finish it all.

         Now, we are learning about the history of the english language, and I find this very interesting. I really like finding out where things originated from and discovering the history of the very language we speak is something on its own. My group, which is comprised of Sam, Brent, Kyle, Cassie, Laurie and I, is doing Late Modern English (1755-present day). I find this is a very broad topic and a pretty tough one to research because so much has happened between 1755 and today: The romantic Era, The victorian era, the wars, the 2oth century…. So I hope to cover this subject as best I can.

             Well I hope this project will turn out great and I will be posting more soon.

Yan Lee.