Tuesdays with Morrie

For this assignment, we had to find a comic stip online that has to do with the book we're currently reading, Tuedays with Morrie. Along with the comic strip, we had to write a reflection. Here's the comic I used to relate the book with:
http://www.cartoonistgroup.com/store/add.php?iid=11415#second

In the book Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch sees that Morrie’s body is becoming less and less productive as the disease, ALS, gets worse. Morrie’s body starts to deteriorate by the use of his legs being taken away, his speech isn’t well, he’s becoming very thin, and it is hard for him to swallow. In this comic strip I picked, which shows a tooth fairy visiting an old man with dentures. The old man shows that as people get older, their body becomes less and less productive because it is getting old and can’t work as well. Although Morrie’s disease is what is causing his body to deteriorate, it also has to do with him being old. His body isn’t strong enough to fight the disease, so the disease takes over his body. What happens to Morrie as the disease gets worse, like not being able to move his legs or arms at all and not being able to talk, shows what most people go through as they get near the end of their days. I think this comic also has to do with the subject of death. The old man shows that death will arrive soon because his body is starting to fail, even if it’s just him losing his teeth. Morrie tries to explain to Mitch that what’s happening to his body is part of the disease and it’s only going to get worse as the disease spreads. He also tells Mitch what he should expect happen to him and what he will and will not be able to do. He tells Mitch that everyone gets old and will eventually die. Morrie wants Mitch to understand that he shouldn’t mourn over the fact that he’s dying, but to celebrate the time he has left of his life. Everyone’s body goes through deterioration as they get older and are about to die, whether it’s from a disease or natural causes, and people have to accept that dying is part of life.
The topic of aging reminds me of when my grandfather’s body started failing. When I was young I remember him being full of life. He would love to play baseball with my cousins and my brother and I in my grandparent’s backyard. In 2004, he showed signs of aging. He had trouble walking and it would take a few people to help him up and down stairs. My grandma couldn’t take care of him at home because it would have been too much for her, so we put him in a convalescent home. Each time when I visited him there, I always noticed something different about how he was deteriorating. He would eat less and less as time went on and he became very thin. All the adults in my family would encourage him to eat by saying, “You need to eat to get your strength back, and when you get your strength back, you could come back home.” He never responded to that probably because he never heard it. He had always had a hard time hearing for a while even before he was put in the convalescent home. My grandmother visited him every day, except for one or two days, from the day he was put in the convalescent home until the day he died. She wanted to spend as much time as she could with him because she didn’t know which day was going to be his last day on Earth. After many months, all my grandfather could do was lie in bed and sleep. We all knew that it was a matter of time before he was going to die. Even though my grandfather didn’t show aging by losing his teeth like the man in the comic, there were several other factors that showed he was aging and death was coming soon for him.

Short Story

In English class, we were asked to write a short story based on an article we found on the internet. In our story, we have to utilize characterization, plot, setting, and point of view. I finally found an article that I thought was a good story to write my own short story on. The article I chose is about a drycleaner who found a note in a jacket pocket which the employee thought was a muder-suicide plot. Here's the article: http://start.mcihispeed.net/article/str?guid=20060928/451b48c0_3ca6_1552620060928237257403

Alice deserved more than this. She worked hard all of her life and dreamed of growing up and having a family that lived in a big beautiful home. She had a husband whom she loved, but he wasn’t as reliable as she was, and a nine year old autistic daughter. Her husband didn’t have a successful job so they couldn’t afford much. They lived in a small house with four rooms which was in a small, poor neighborhood.
Alice was always exhausted from watching out for Susie. She would often throw a temper tantrum and throw any object that was near her. Many of Alice’s nice vases and her other belongings broke. Their house was always a disaster. There were always dishes piled up in the sink and the house had a nasty odor to it. Alice never could find time to clean the house, so when she saw a mess, she would never be able to get to it. While she worked hard, her husband either worked a little bit from home or sat around and read the newspaper all day. She would frequently take Susie to the park or to go see a movie so she wouldn’t have to be constantly reminded of how bad their house was.
Robert wasn’t too happy having an autistic child. He knew from day one that it was going to be difficult raising a disabled child. Most of the time he would ignore Susie and he never wanted to spend time with her.
Robert also never appreciated what his wife did. There was always a gourmet dinner that Alice would prepare for her family so they could enjoy a part of the day that they’re together. One night, she cooked lamb for everyone. She was very proud of this meal she had made because they rarely had lamb and she spent longer than normal cooking this dinner. When Robert came to the table, he told her that he wasn’t hungry because he had eaten before and he wanted to continue reading the paper. Alice made him sit at the table when they ate anyway and said that it was rude not to appreciate someone’s hard work.
After dinner, Alice would take Susie for a long walk around the neighborhood. Susie always looked forward to the long walks because she enjoyed watching the sun set. Every night, Alice offered Robert to go along with them, but he always refused. He would say he had more important things to do. She didn’t think that what he was doing, which was probably sitting around doing nothing, was more important than spending time with his family.
“Why do you always spend more time with Susie than you do with me?” Robert asked Alice one night as they were getting ready for bed.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re always out doing something with her or you’re too busy doing something else. You never get to spend any time with me.”
“Someone has to take control of Susie or the house would be even more of a mess! Besides, you never want to do anything with us. We would love for you to join us on our walks or go out with us once in a while. It would also help if you could clean the house sometimes or get a decent job to support us. I’m doing my best to make everyone happy and you just sit around all day doing nothing. You’re very lazy and you’re being selfish.”
Alice was sick of Robert not helping raising their autistic child. She knew Susie needed a respectful father and she didn’t have one. Alice wished Robert would be more of a caring person. Robert didn’t say anything after that. Both of them went to bed furious with each other.
About a week later after the fight they had, Alice had to go to the grocery store to pick up some things for dinner. She didn’t want to have the hassle of bringing Susie with her, so she asked Robert to watch her for a while when she was gone.
An hour later when she returned from the grocery store, she walked to the front door and turned the knob to open the door. When she walked into the house, she heard screaming coming from the kitchen. She ran to the kitchen and found Robert tied to a chair with tape on his mouth. His face was red and she could tell he had been screaming for a while. She ran over to him, crying, and took the tape off his mouth.
“What happened?!”
He was breathing hard, but didn’t respond to her. His head was pointed in the direction of the right to her. She looked to her right and saw her daughter dead with a large dark red puddle next to her along with one of Alice’s cutting knives. She screamed at the sight of her daughter and started to bawl. She looked at her husband and asked what happened.
“About ten minutes after you left, a man with all black on barged into the house. He demanded all of the money we had in the house and grabbed Susie, holding a knife to her throat. He asked me again for it and I said we didn’t have any money in the house and then he killed her and tied me up to a chair.”
“We have to call the police!”
Alice ran to the phone and quickly dialed the number. Within minutes, the police arrived at their house. Alice and Robert told them exactly what had happened and what Robert had witnessed. They spent a couple of hours investigating the scene. One police officer mentioned how it was weird that they used a weapon from their house to kill her instead of bringing their own weapon, like a gun, to make sure they had something to kill someone. Another police officer asked Alice and Robert if they knew anyone that was in debt and needed money. Alice and Robert both agreed they didn’t know anyone that was in need of money or would kill their daughter. At about five O’clock, they left without a clue as to who had committed the murder along with Susie’s dead body.
Later that evening, Alice and Robert sat in the living room in silence. Alice was still shedding tears and blaming herself for leaving the house and leaving the door unlocked. She couldn’t believe that her daughter had been murdered. Robert just sat across the room staring at her. He hadn’t even tried to comfort Alice after the incident and he didn’t say much to her. She thought he was probably too sad to talk.
“Do you want to go for a walk tonight?” Robert suddenly asked her.
Alice stared at him in disbelief.
“How could you want to do anything after our child died today?” she asked him forcefully.
“I’m just thinking it might help us think things through by getting some fresh air.”
Alice ignored his response
“Susie was such a wonderful kid. I can’t believe anyone would kill a child…I mean, she never deserved to die. The poor kid was autistic and had to live a hard life…”
Robert didn’t have a reaction to that. They sat in silence, once again.
A month later, after Susie was killed, Alice was getting ready one morning to go to see a movie with Robert. She was thinking about how they never found out who had killed her. She had been missing Susie so much the past month. She was her only child and she loved her more than anything. She tried not to think about it and continued getting ready.
Alice couldn’t find her favorite earrings that she got for a Christmas present last year from her sister. She looked through her jewelry box again and couldn’t find them. She thought maybe they were lying in a dresser drawer. She had looked through three drawers when she opened Robert’s sock drawer and found a folded piece of paper. She opened it up and saw a plan that someone had drawn out. It was a plan to kill Susie. It said:
Alice leaves house for at least an hour. Wait a little while after she leaves then get Susie. Bring Susie into the kitchen thinking I’m going to make her a sandwich then grab the knife on the counter and kill her.
It was Robert’s handwriting. At once she broke out into a sweat and started panicking. She couldn’t believe Robert would kill his own daughter. She then became extremely mad at the fact that she had thought some stranger had murdered her daughter all of this time when it had been her husband and no one knew. She was in rage and needed to do something about this. She put the note into her pocket and went along with the rest of the night without saying a word.
One morning when Robert was about to go out to the store while Alice was still sleeping, he grabbed his favorite jacket that he wore almost every day. He put it on and went out the front door. It was a chilly October morning and the coolness of the wind was making his hands cold, so he put them in his pockets. In his right pocket, he felt a piece of paper in there. He took it out and unfolded it. It read:
You have committed a murder, but no one believes it. All I can do is kill myself, then everyone will see what you have done.
Your wife,
Alice
Robert almost fainted in the middle of the driveway in shock. Horrified, he ran back toward the house and flew the door opened. As he opened the door he yelled up to Alice.
“Alice! You’re…you’re wrong, you…”
Robert was interrupted by a sudden a blow on the head. He was hit with a in the back of the head with a hammer that was held in the hand of someone behind the door. He fell to the ground with blood pouring out of his head.

"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" and Stock Characters

This is our first assignment for English 9H. We have read a variety of short stories and for the story "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty," by James Thurber, is what this assignment in based on. In the story, it represents satire and stock characters. We have to think of three examples of stock characters on t.v. or in movies and find a character on t.v. or in a movie to represent the kind of stock character.
Three Common Stock Characters:

1) The geeky/nerdy kid
An example of this kind of person is Steve Urkel on the show "Family Matters". He has huge glasses and wears suspenders that are too short. He's also clumsy and talks differently. Everyone makes fun of him because he's not like everyone else. Other people take advantage of him because they know he's just a weak nerd.
Here's Urkel!:
http://www.kellie.de/fm1/fm_urkel.jpg

2) The bossy/controlling person
Marie on the show "Everybody Loves Raymond" portrays this kind of person. She usually doesn't agree with what Ray and Debra decide on and takes control of many situations. She usually tells Ray and Debra what to do and thinks her way of doing something is better than Ray and Debra's.
Here is a picture of Marie:
http://www.wvah.com/programs/raymond/dorisroberts.jpg

3) The stuck up/popular/rich girl
Regina George in the movie "Mean Girls" is the popular girl. She has authority over everyone and can control them because they let her. Everyone thinks she's the queen bee and lets her be mean to anyone who she thinks isn't as good as her. Her friends also let her act this way and whatever Regina tells them to do, they listen to her and do it.
Here's a picture of Regina:
http://www.dfi.dk/dfi/undervisning/meangirls/meangirls7.jpg