The Place of True Freedom

This is a piece I wrote for an English class my second year at junior college.  After we had read Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels", we were assigned to write a satirical essay.  This is the product of that assignment.

The Place of True Freedom

Walking home from work one night, feeling depressed at the state of the world, I saw a sign saying that a man who knew the secret to fixing the world’s problems was here tonight to share his knowledge with us.  Curious, I ducked into the theater where he would be speaking and took a seat.  The man came out to the podium set up on the stage and began to speak.  I leaned back in my chair, eager to listen to this marvelous man who held the secret to a peaceful and contented world.  This is his speech.

On Politics and Policies 

A Treatise on How to Make Our Country and World Safer and More Fair.

Our world today is filled with injustices and hatred.  People are fighting in the streets; children are going hungry while the big-shot CEOs are buying new cars and bigger houses; businessmen and policymakers are showing favoritism when they make decisions.  This is absolutely not right.  All humans are created equal.  We are all brothers and sisters in this world and as such we must join together and help each other, refusing to show favor or preference to one group or another.  If we want to make our world a better place, we must embrace unity, tolerance, justice and freedom.  Everyone must be free to express themselves without fear of censor or ridicule.  All are entitled to have freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, freedom of religion and freedom to do and think as one pleases.  We must have freedom from

The Legacy of Literature

Today I am going to move from things I wrote in high school to something I wrote my freshman year of college.  This essay was written for my freshman comp class during my first semester at junior college.  We were told to find an aphorism (which, according to the dictionary is a pithy observation that contains a general truth) and write an essay about why we thought the aphorism we chose was true using personal examples.  Enjoy.

                                                                            The Legacy of Literature

                                              “A room without books is like a body without a soul”

                                                                                        - Cicero

Just as the soul of a human being brings life and animation to the body, so do books bring those same qualities to a room. When the soul departs, the body is left a lifeless shell - a shadow of what was. Likewise, a room without books is dull, lifeless and dead. A person’s soul is immortal, living on after the body is dead; so to, are books. Long after an author has died, the books written by them have the potential to live on to inspire and teach those who come after. 

I have experienced such teaching and inspiration in my own life. Many of my favorite books, the ones that impacted me the most, were written by people who died many years before I was born. A perfect example

Lauren's Journal

Going back to the idea of posting some of my older work, I found a couple of things that I wrote in high school that I thought I might share with you all.  

This short story was written for some sort of contest in my junior or senior year of high school.  Once again, I have not changed anything from the original.  

 Lauren’s Journal

Who am I? What am I doing here? What’s the point in living anyway? Those were the words written in the center of the first page of the journal I had found. All around them, filling up the rest of the page, were drawings. Sad drawings. Pictures and sketches of crying girls, angry boys, wilting flowers and bleeding hearts. Pictures from the hopeless. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I turned the page. Whoever the owner of the journal was, they were obviously hurting.

At first I didn’t want to read it. It was someone’s personal journal, I had no right! But I felt drawn to it. Something inside me whispered and told me to read it. No! I kept saying, it isn’t mine. But it kept whispering. Then I realized it must be the Spirit. So I picked it up and started reading.  I read all night. It was impossible to put down. As I read, I wept. I wept as I never had before - - and doubt I ever shall again. This girl was hurting. Her very soul was screaming for help.

  Her name was Lauren Stewart and she was 16. Very likely only a few months younger than myself. She was an only child whose parents were alcoholics and drug dealers. They never paid much attention to her nor did they care about her, so

Mockingjay - The Hunger Games Book 3

I have so much to say about Mockingjay that I'm not quite sure where to start.  I have already shared some of my reservations or misgivings about this series in my post on The Hunger Games and I have raved about how much I liked Catching Fire.  So, what do I share about Mockingjay?  I supposed I shall start by summarizing and go from there.


***SPOILER ALERT*** In this post I am assuming 1) that you have already read these books and 2) that you have already read my previous posts on this series. If you haven't read the book, consider yourself warned, if you haven't read my previous posts, go here.


Mockingjay picks up a few days after Catching Fire ended.  Katniss is with her mom and sister in District 13, but she is still very distraught.  Peeta is in the hands of the Capitol.  The president of district 13 wants her to become the face of the rebellion, but Katniss is unsure if she supports it.  She doesn't like the Capitol, but the rebels did lie to her and leave Peeta in the arena to be captured.  That doesn't really endear them to her.  Then she sees Peeta on Capitol TV telling the rebels to stop fighting and give up.  Katniss knows that he is saying this because he is being forced to, but

Catching Fire - The Hunger Games Book 2

So, building on my last post, today we shall be talking about book two of the Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire.  By far, this was my favorite book in the series.  I feel like the first one set the stage and the second one was the climax of everything and then the third.... well, we'll talk about that one later.  I'm going to focus on analyzing the story and talking about what I think about style, character development, etc.  I already spent a decent amount of time digging into the deeper meanings and such in my post on the first book.  If you haven't already, I highly suggest reading it before you jump into this one, as this one will build on the other a little bit.


***SPOILER ALERT*** I will be discussing the book as if I am talking to someone who has already read it, thus I might give away important plot points, so if you haven't read it yet, consider yourself warned.


Picking up right where the Hunger Games left off, with Peeta and Katniss returning home as victors, we watch as new drama and difficulties unfold for Katniss.  She and Peeta are barely speaking since he found out that her lovey-dovey act in the arena was just that - an act.  She and Gale rarely see each other since she still has to keep up the idea that she and Peeta are in love and Gale is now working in the coal mines.  In short, Katniss' life is now pretty miserable.  Before the hunger games, Gale was her

The Hunger Games - Book

So, back in '10 I saw The Hunger Games at the library and put it on my list of books to read.  But I had about 20 other books on the list, so it was pretty far down on the bottom.  Then more and more people I know started reading it, and then I found out it was being made into a movie, so I figured I should probably bump it up a couple notches on the list so I would know what all these people are talking about. So I went and checked it out of the library, and spent all day one Wednesday reading it.  I couldn't put it down.

***SPOILER ALERT*** I will be discussing things that happen in the book that may give away certain plot points, so if you don't want to know, stop now.

The Hunger Games is a well written book and to be completely honest I enjoyed it very much, but it was also rather disturbing.  The government takes
a bunch of kids, throws them into an arena and has them fight to the death on television and the whole country is forced to watch.  If you've read the books or watched the movie, detach yourself from the fact that the books are very well written and interesting and that the movie was pretty faithful and well made and think about that premise for a minute.  A group of

Gulliver's Travels

So, for my Critical Thinking class, we had to read Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift.  Quite honestly, I'm not even sure where to start when it comes to reviewing it.  It was interesting I guess and I did learn a lot about thinking critically, but the book itself was so crass and gross that I had a hard time reading it.  I mean really, do we need to read about Gulliver's bodily functions and how many times he was "raped"?  Seriously!  Those things are not important to the storyline, nor did they serve much of a purpose when it came to critical thinking.  Man, I am so glad that book is over!
As far as ratings go, I give it 1 for language, 1 for violence and a 3 for sexual content.
Contrary to the connotation that our culture has given to this story, it is not for children.