Third Quarter Reflection

The area that I feel that I have made the most improvements in this quarter has to be using the TIQA format. The first improvement that I had made is that now I understand it a bit more, because I would always struggle with it not knowing how to use it, but now that I understand it a bit more it has become easier to use. Another area that I have improved in is how much I use it. Before the third quarter I would rarely ever use the TIQA format, but now I use it a lot more often. The third improvement that I made is how I use the TIQA format, because before the third quarter I always felt that I ways doing it wrong, but now I know I am using the TIQA format the right way. But even though I have made a lot of improvements using the TIQA format I feel that I still have a long way to go until I completely master using the TIQA format.

Something that I have accomplished this quarter that I am proud of is that I beat my twenty Book Challenge. There are many reasons why I am proud of that, but the most important reason is because I rarely ever read and this Quarter I have read a lot of books. Another reason why I am proud of this accomplishment is because last year when I was doing this challenge I only read like five books. The final reason why I am proud of this accomplishment is the fact that because I have read so many books this quarter my vocabulary has improved. So those are the reasons why I am proud of beating the twenty book challenge.

The most challenging part of the third quarter for me would have to be the Butterfly project. The reason why it was the most challenging part of the Third Quarter was because I'm not really used to doing project’s like those. Another thing that had made the Butterfly Project the most challenging part of the third quarter, for me, would have to be presenting the Butterfly to the whole glass. That’s what made is the most challenging for me because I don't really like doing class presentations, because I get extremely nervous while doing them. So that was the most challenging part of the third quarter for me.

Night Blog

Throughout the book Wiesel changes a lot, but the biggest change is seen with his religion. In the beginning of the book Wiesel states, “I believed profoundly. During the day I studied the Talmud, and at night I ran to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the temple. One day I asked my father to find me a master to guide me in my studies cabbala.” (1) So Wiesel was so extremely pious that not only did he study two different religions, but he also begged his father to find him a master to guide him in his studies of the Cabala. So that just goes to show how pious Wiesel was at the beginning of the book. But even though he is extremely pious in the beginning it does not stay that way for the whole book because Wiesel states, “Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my god and my soul…”. (33) So this was the start of Wiesel’s “hatred” of god, because all of the jewish people are suffering while god is just watching it happen, doing nothing. 

Another transformation that Wiesel goes through is his relationship with his father. This is stated in, ““My father was a cultured man, rather unsentimental. He rarely displayed his feelings, not even within his family, and was more involved with the welfare of others than with that of his own kin”(2). This shows that before everything had happened they really did not have a good relationship, due to the fact that he never really showed emotion. But even though they did not have a really good relationship in the beginning of the book, it does not stay that way. Later on in the book, “They said that we were sick, that we would die soon, and that it would be a waste of food ...I Can't Go on … I gave him what was left of my soup” (102).This shows how could of a relationship they had because even though his father was dying, he still gave him part of his rations.

So as you can see Weisel had went through many major changes, during his suffering. He went from being an extremely pious boy to a broken man. But even though he is broken he also got stronger, all of the hardships that he had gone through those times had just made him stronger. 

Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York: Bansom Edition, 1960. Print

Butterfly Poem

"Terezin" by Hanuš Hachenburg

“That bit of filth in dirty walls,
And all around barbed wire,
And 30,000 souls who sleep
Who once will wake
And once will see
Their own blood spilled.

I was once a little child,
Three years ago.
That child who longed for other worlds.
But now I am no more a child
For I have learned to hate.
I am a grown-up person now,
I have known fear.
Bloody words and a dead day then,

That’s something different than bogie men!

But anyway, I still believe I only sleep today,
That I’ll wake up, a child again, and start to laugh and play.
I’ll go back to childhood sweet like a briar rose,
Like a bell which wakes us from a dream,
Like a mother with an ailing child
Loves him with woman’s love.
How tragic, then, is youth which lives
With enemies, with gallows ropes,
How tragic, then, for children on your lap
To say: this for the good, that for the bad.

Somewhere, far away out there, childhood sweetly sleeps,
Along that path among the trees,
There o’er that house
Which was once my pride and joy.
There my mother gave me birth into this world
So I could weep . . .

In the flame of candles by my bed, I sleep
And once perhaps I’ll understand
That I was such a little thing,
As little as this song.

These 30,000 souls who sleep
Among the trees will wake,
Open an eye
And because they see
A lot

They’ll fall asleep again. . .”

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