Essay #2: August 15 2008;

Catherine McCollum
Mrs. Bosch
English Honors 10
1 July 2008

Individuals in this universe possess refinement in numerous processes, and they pronounce that the quondam days elucidate you. They conceivably possess family history, geography, or memories to revamp them. Many personages cultivate distaste of what they've become, and they desire to metamorphose in the course of time. Revisions may possess goodness, but in scarce cases revisions hold prominence. Negligible individuals become hermits if not altered in some modus operandi by their past. Those who never assimilate their mistakes, or those who repudiate their past never burgeon for they must evolve but not endure remorse of their past. The past concocted their future, and they should convey gratitude towards their existentialism. My geography, family history, and memories have molded me by holding me in existence, holding a copious future, and persisting to shape me each day. They have revamped me in my customs, traditions, knowledge, and emotions through my life.
My geography plays a significant role in shaping me for several justifications. My region of habitation has altered me through my friends, schools, and towns. My companions have influenced me my entire life by all means through fortification, depletion of my time, retaining my confidence, and being dependable. My friends have converted me into a distinguished individual, for they themselves contain prominence.
They've altered me to invoke inspiration each day, and treat others with coalition and benevolence. They assist me with predicaments, and I aid them with their plight. We attend functions at the movies, parties, pools, sporting events, and joviality. They have created a competitive, strong, and forbearing friend. My schools have shaped me most severely, through the years of edification at my educational institutions containing no Floccinaucinihilipilification. I have ascertained that individuals composed of supercilious qualities will perpetually be blind to the world around them. Intermittently the past causes me great distress, but when I contemplate of where I situate currently and the friends I possess I may persevere. My town has shaped me through culture, proceedings, incomprehensibilities, and through friends. The apricot fiestas convey entertainment and cultures together to celebrate as one. Additionally we possess ice cream nights, skate at the circle nights, block parties, fireworks, movie at the pool nights, and increased supplements of entertainment. The events and people incorporate small-town qualities to the community, albeit the town is expanding and mutating errantly by the minute.
Adolescents disburse time with friends on a constant basis, for the town comprises dearth of bliss. The entail for social interaction conveys a chain reaction through most minors, transcending most rules of conduct. The excitement of the town shifts great memories comprising of the nightlife, and the scorched heated days. As a town we have celebrated all causes as one in pure jubilance, but it has since changed. All the buoyancy, blithe, and dysfunctions of this town have altered me in my culture and in my disposition. Divertissements, denominations, rituals, and creations enlightened may be passed down to my descendants. I have been fashioned in profuse amounts that my exclusive hope is to bestow what I am cognizant of to those who will hark.
The mores of church have shaped me. As child the Lutheran Church baptized me, and I became an antitransubstantiationalist. We consider ourselves a monad, and comrades of indistinguishable difficulties. My church has contrived me into a good-natured Christian, and yearns for me to outstretch for the aspirations I've set for myself. We as a church hold rituals of attending each Sunday, commemorating holidays, and existing as a substantial Christian. A marvelous person betakes oneself to heaven, but every religion expands the requirements of paradise.
My family history has refined me. I have assimilated an abundance of knowledge through my ancestors and through my present family. My grandma proceeds to teach me of my ancestors, utilitarian tools for life, indoctrinating me of cats, of our bygone days, of tending a farm, of her childhood, of folklore, and of current affairs. She developed numerous family trees, and spoke of each person enumerated on paper. My arrays of prominent ancestors are Garrett Van Swearingen, Pocahontas, Richard Nixon, Abraham Lincoln, Mary Todd Lincoln, Joseph Smith and Jane Swearingen.
Their stories contain diverse qualities, yet each story held interest at each juncture. Garrett Van Swearingen inscribed in his diary that three hundred men invaded, and a profusion of them seized control so he surrendered. He progressed to Maryland and enfolded hundreds of acres, flourished tobacco, and his second wife's father possessed a tavern that he eventually inherited and bequeathed to his descendants. When the grandson inherited the tavern he triumphed an election opposing George Washington. The grandson provided generous briberies of alcohol, and George Washington inevitably provided alcohol supplementary to the disparate candidates in the preceding election. My dearest story of all involved William "Billy" Cole, denominated as "Corn planting Billy.” He originated from North Carolina, he practiced the agronomy of corn, and he also made corn whisky. Every Sunday he consumed mass amounts of alcohol, bestrode his white horse, and announced to the town that they should entitle him the "best corn planter in the whole county." One day he toppled off his horse and became prostrate evidently breaking his neck, and they buried him on the precise spot of his demise with a marker.
The people who espied Billy shot the horse and buried the equine beside him, causing bereavement to his second wife, and the following day she purchased a plot of the cemetery so that her family would not inhume her next to the horse. The family buried the son of Billy in the unorthodox cemetery when he received a shot through a window, and his daughter Rosie Cole Nixon put a headstone for the enshrouded grave of her father.
My grandma divulged stories of such temperament each day, persisting to shape my intellect and calculate its capability. The praxis of storytelling is indispensable to my family for my father invariably shares amusing stories of his drudgeries, juvenescence, and my commencement. Stories homogeneous to my family's are uncommon, and should be conserved and allocated. I consider that I should inscribe all my kindred's anecdotes in one capacious treatise so that I may ration them to future generations, because those stories appraised provide me with memories merely slumbering. They assist me to perceive existence in a divergent light, and proceed in shaping my family's history and me. Each of my ancestors had strength and brobdingnagian hearts. They only contemplated for the preeminent, albeit many effectuated their lives abysmally. As their progeny I've pondered at their dispositions and fathomed that their peccadilloes may induce my success. Comprehending my mistakes remains with me for I subsist it each ephemeral day, and I will not become ignorant because they would never sustain themselves. These idiosyncrasies and integrity-building exertions have shaped me, and proceed to shape me. Being cognizant of my family and their vitality may contribute to my prospects by becoming the concordant individuals they once were, and it may also propose that I could want to subsist unconventionally. An individual impacted by numerous people of autochthonous may exist in an auspicious epoch. Their history may also presuppose memories, which shape them rigorously.
The preponderance of memories shapes you, because your intellect and memories transfer to future generations creating sagas or legends. A memory can gallivant in an endless direction, and it can destroy everything you endured. The evil and good constructed by memories may shape you, if you assimilate from previous days. I have transfigured considerable amounts through the years from my memories, because I've become proficient to respect, to love, to retain kindness, and to contain generosity. Marvelous memories create euphoric individuals; they promote originality with ethos, sophistication, and adeptness. I've possessed numerous magnificent and shoddy memories, but I know it's beneficent to recall only the pleasant. I recollect the durations of gliding atop pillows descending the stairs, oscillating on the swings, attending my first fête, the pure euphoria of snow, and the first kiss. I maunder about assessments of merriment without hesitation, and perchance enumerate abysmal assessments. What transpires in your life regulates the sort of person you will transform into, and how you will preside over those hindrances. It assembles disposition to remain tenacious, and it aids vigilantes what personage you've converted to. Memories modify you, but residing in the previous days hinders you. When you contemplate relentlessly of peradventures, you spasmodically dwell on it until your existence is depleted. John Greenleaf Whittier once said, "For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, 'it might have been.'" He fathomed the dejection produced by fallacious justifications for the demise of previous jubilation. Neglecting dolefulness changes you, and memories remind and motivate you through the changes.
The geography, family history, and memories of an individual may alter them throughout their existences. Things change so easily, and no one can predict the future. The transformation throughout their lives exists in today, and only makes provisions for their futures. No promises exist, but the establishment of disposition and distinguishing whom they exist as and what created that existence. My geography, family history, and memories have altered me through the years. They have altered through traditions, customs, knowledge, and hope. They will persevere in modifying me till I have fathomed all I necessitate to fathom myself.

Essay #1: August 12/17 2008;

Catherine McCollum
Mrs. Bosch
Honors English 9
30 July 2008

In the novel Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe, pride matters of dominance contained pride. Usually people ponder upon pride infrequently, and of no thoughts in discernment but of shallowness. Although the predominance of pride may be ruinous, minute amounts of pride may not. Chinua Achebe embellishes his pride in his novel. He illustrates his pride in family, heritage, memory, language, lives, and humanity in general. Possessing pride contains obligations to these dignified attributes in life. It is evident through his writing that he possesses great pride in all circumstances, and he desires to allocate them with the public. His prominence of family, heritage, memory, language, lives, and humanity in general exist ubiquitously. Encountering this pride and love in significant things induces pride in his existence. His parturition located in Nigeria consisted provided most of his allegories, and during the Nigerian Civil War his writings contained his dissatisfaction with what Nigeria transformed into since independence. The author persevered in pride over Nigeria, but in a different perspective since its transformation. Achebe retained his bygone memories, love, and pride in his heart. He illustrated the pride of family, heritage, memory, language, lives, and humanity in general in his book Things Fall Apart.
The author possesses great pride in the concept of family; the exemplifications provided by his book vary. Okonkwo's family, the Nigerian clans, the mothers, the wives, and the teaching of children operated as significant functions in Chinua Achebe's family pride. Okonkwo's family sustained him and complied with him. They indemnified him out of incarceration, prepared his viands, decontaminated the huts, implemented his commands, accepted his beatings, obliged him, and attended him in his exile. "No matter how prosperous a man was, if he was unable to rule his women and his children (and especially his women) he was not really a man." (Achebe 1). His three spouses contributed goodness, and never felt repentant of their matrimony. A father nurturing his descendants had presents of honor to indoctrinate them; they would burgeon into success or misfortune, but their father's endeavors will consistently possess gratification. The Nigerian clans possessed identical qualities. All men possessed strength in order to be successful and all men governed their families; if a man couldn't dominate his women or family he was no man at all. Achebe developed in Nigeria and experienced family qualities; the clan together remained as a family. They altercated united, and they existed in collaboration; joviality bound them united as one, and the missionaries ruptured them. Achebe possessed pride for his family, but contained perturbation from the vanquishing of that bond. "We have heard stories about white men who made the powerful guns and the strong drinks and took slaves away across the seas, but no one thought the stories were true." (2). They thought the white men to exist in legends; the thought that they possessed the power to destroy clans occurred to Achebe. Although the white men possessed power, the clan remained superior. Support for the men advanced from the mothers; they received large quantities of respect after their decease, and their children possessed privileges of refuge in their motherland. Okonkwo for seven years had been banished, and he sought refuge in his motherland. There his mother's kinsman and relatives inoculated him and his family. Achebe establishes evidence that family must protect each other in order to prevail.
Achebe adorns his pride in heritage; he inscribes stories, religion, traditions, and curses. Stories consisted of twins, evil ogbanjes, and an evil forest. One legend contained a turtle possessing greed. "Tortoise turned to the birds and said: 'You remember that my name is All of you. The custom is to serve the spokesman first and the others later. They will serve you when I have eaten.'" (3). The story contained morals that nurtured the children of the clan into virtuous adults. All stories possessed morals and reasons; their visualization and comprehension of their religion and curses contained wonderment that engaged in each mind of the attentive. The stories of Ogbanjes contained additional excitement throughout the town; they evoked fear even through their stories. "After such treatment it would think twice before coming again, unless it was one of the stubborn ones who returned, carrying the stamp of their mutilation - a missing finger or perhaps a dark line where the medicine man's razor had cut them." (4). Ogbanjes existed as stillborn or dying children. They unfailingly returned to be reborn subsequent to death; they caused their mothers desolation and people evaluated them as devil children. Ogbanjes possessed easy identification after mutilation for the medicine man mutilated their body, causing desires not to return. This curse throughout town contained much rarity, but all the clansmen took it humorlessly. The pain and suffering Ekwefi went through was unbearable; each time her baby died she grew more despondent. Occasionally she would name her children deadly names so that death may suit them. Achebe illustrated his pride for customs and traditions, for he identified the many traditions of his heritage. If the humans found the stone that tied them to Earth, their existence would be destroyed; Achebe apparently believed in such traditions and thought them necessary.
Achebe unfailingly writes of the clan's beliefs. Enumerable amounts of these significant beliefs clash the missionaries' stipulated religion. "The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart." (5). The religion of the white man pried itself into the roots of the clansmen. It strategically placed a knife on the strings that clenched them together; from the commencement of accessing the villages and forming companionships with the clansmen they seeded their crops of evil. They converted countless clansmen, constructed housing and worship, provided an exceptional system of government, and dilapidated their methods of life. The missionaries converted highly respectable people, friends and family, stipulating the opposing to turn their backs on their cognizance. The missionaries built a church that all were permitted to attend, which they declared a protected sector beneath god. The missionaries built a government which the clansmen provided no expectations; the white men scoffed at their traditions and religion. All their knowledge dissipated, and the wait in fear commenced. Achebe possessed trepidation with this revelation and illustrated his fear in his novel. All known of family possessed restored destruction, but his pride for family would stand resistant. Achebe possessed pride of the clansmen's beliefs; they believed in the gods, having personal fortune, and following the traditions of the clan. Traditions contained clan trials judged by the spirits. "Uzowulu's body, I solute you," he said. (6). Spirits always addressed humans as "bodies." The egwugwus judged fate, and their roles were taken humorlessly. When the clansmen possessed controversies, they presented themselves before the spirits for recommendations. Although the spirits possessed the bodies of clansmen, their treatment was respect and the success of all orders.
The spirits possessed significant and defective qualities, and presented themselves during the apex of celebrations. "The elders consulted their Oracle and it told them that the strange man would break their clan and spread destruction among them." (7). Confrontation arose when an egwugwu's mask was withdrawn by a clansmen who converted to Christianity. Bewilderment twanged, for it had never occurred prior. Achebe illustrates his pride in tradition and customs by the reactions of the clansmen and Christians. He conveys his pride as an everlasting tribute to his beliefs, and the identical beliefs of the clansmen; all hindrances became unimportant in their presence. An additional significant traditional custom of the clansmen is the presenting of the kola nut. "Thank you. He who brings kola brings life." (8). The presenter of the kola nut before visitants granted copious amounts of honor. The kola nut brought existence and vigor, and clansmen relinquished it to the presenters of gratitude. Achebe illustrates his pride when he allocates the experience of the kola nut custom; he provided his pride with the accommodation of the kola nut, and the depleting of time between friends.
Achebe also conveys his pride of language; the language differences between the missionaries and the incomprehensibilities of the clansmen. "He said something, only they did not understand him," said Obierka. "He seemed to speak through his nose." (9). A missionary exerted to establish tranquility with the clansmen, but the oracle of the clan had proclaimed the missionary's intentions to destroy the clan. The language contradistinctions became onerous, and influenced the destruction of numerous clans. Achebe exemplified the momentousness of reminiscence, and the knowledge conveyed from it. Reminiscences of existence prior of Christian missionaries, traditions, customs, time, and life captivated the intellect of the clansmen. Achebe moreover emphasizes the significance of lives, and humanity in general. "It is an abomination for a man to take his own life. It is an offense against the Earth, and a man who commits it will not be buried by his clansmen. His body is evil, and only strangers may touch it. That is why we ask your people to bring him down, because you are strangers." (10). They consider the body to retain righteousness, for it exists as a vessel that the gods bestowed upon them. Chances at life remained scarce, and the clansmen took heed of their retributions; if they had lived a an unsuccessful existence they would possess the assurance of serendipity. Ending one's life contained the assurance of ignominy, forcing the evil body to be dragged by presumptuous missionaries; Okonkwo's body possessed the indistinguishable custom of rotting away in the evil forest, and becoming a banquet for the scavengers. Achebe emphasizes the odiousness of suicide, and how momentous the very contemplations become. Achebe esteems life, and prospered believing the entirety of life's righteousness. All who desire to perish become abominable, and unworthy of existence.
Chinua Achebe possessed dignity in his home Nigeria; his life progressed there, posterior to his parturition. He acquired knowledge of appreciation that consisted of diverse yet identical qualities. He possessed pride in family, heritage, memory, language, lives, and humanity in general. He embellished his pride within the text of Things Fall Apart, and had desired exemplification of the morals and pride of each value of his country. Achebe's family provided him with memories, traditions, and heritage so that he may advance successfully. They provided language, memories, living, and ideas of humanity in general. They nurtured him into a fortunate man, possessing the virtue and morals of life. He acquired pride for his country, and pride for his morals; he was fond of his life and deemed it extraordinary. Chinua Achebe inscribed his book, so that we may distinguish his pride for family, heritage, memory, language, lives, and humanity in general.



Works Cited
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. 1994. New York: Anchor Books, 1958.
Achebe, Chinua. "Chinua Achebe." Books and Writers. 31 July 2002. Bamber Gascoigne. 31 Jul 2008 www.kirjasto.sci.fi/achebe.htm>.

Journal Pages

Date: Thursday, June 26, 2008

Page: 207

Quote: "It is an abomination for a man to take his own life. It is an offense against the Earth, and a man who commits it will not be buried by his clansmen. His body is evil, and only strangers may touch it. That is why we ask your people to bring him down, because you are strangers."

This quote struck me in a a despairing way. It was an abomination for a man to take his own life. It was an offense against the Earth. They could not be buried by his clansmen, for only strangers could touch it. They would place him in the evil forest, and there his body would rot and decay. His body was evil, for the evil act he had done. He had hanged himself, and therefore became evil. It was an offense against Christianity also, so with much trepidation they brought him down. As soon as the missionary spotted Okonkwo he immediately changed his tone, and became sincere.

Date: Thursday, June 26, 2008

Page: 208

Quote: "That man was one of the greatest men in Umuofia. You drove him to kill himself, and now he will be buried like a dog. . . . " He could not say any more. his voice trembled and choked his words.

Obierika was choked up at Okonkwo's death. He stated that Okonkwo was one of the greatest men in Umuofia, and that they drove him to kill himself. Okonkwo would be buried like a dog. His body would be placed in the evil forest by stranger's hands, and there would be no legend of him. He would receive no titles, and his son Nwoye would pass on Christianity to his grandchildren. His family would be corrupt, his friends would be devastated, and he would be no more. Without Okonkwo the missionaries and their converts would take over the clans, and forcibly end all traditions.

Journal Pages

Date: Thursday, June 26, 2008

Page: 200

Quote: "Worthy men are no more," Okonkwo sighed as he remembered those days.

This quote struck sadness. Okonkwo stated that worthy men are no more, that they were in the days of before. It is nostalgia that powers most melancholy, and nostalgia alone. In Okonkwo's clan, men were converting to other religions and leaving their families. They were abandoning all that they knew, so that they may find something they've been looking for. There were no more worthy men in the clan. They all threw their titles away and converted to Catholicism. The worthy men were dying or being traitorous. The dying died well, and the traitors would die miserably.

Date: Thursday, June 26, 2008

Page: 203

Quote: "All our gods are weeping. Idemili is weeping, Ogwugwu is weeping, Agbala is weeping, and all the others." 

This quote invoked thought. All the gods were weeping, and the converts and missionaries were the cause of it. The gods were left powerless as the Catholics took over. They changed the government, and people. They took men of title and children from families. They broke friendships, and they were not holding back. The gods were weeping because their reign was coming to an end. The Catholics were gaining more control each day, and the gods had no say. They could no longer smite the nonbelievers, or kill out of tradition. Customs were abandoned, and the gods were weeping terribly.

Journal Pages

Date: Thursday, June 26, 2008

Page: 187

Quote: "What are they planning to do?" he asked. No one knew, because such a thing had never happened before."

A clansman had took a mask off a spirit in the public. The missionaries were discussing what the clansmen were planning to do, and no on knew for such a thing had never happened before. The consequence of their actions would be burning down the church so that nothing of that sort would happen again. They wished to just wipe out the whole religion so that nothing would become of them. They thought that if they were no more, that the evil they brought would soon disappear. They thought all their problems were brought on by these people, and most of them were. They thought sending them to the evil forest would get rid of them, but it only fed their church. They were desperate to get rid of the missionaries and their converts, that those traitorous clansmen meant nothing to the clan believers.

Date: Thursday, June 26, 2008

Page: 195

Quote: "You are not satisfied with your crime, but you must kill the white man on top of it." 

After burning the church down, the human spirits were put in jail because of it. They were speaking of killing all the missionaries and the converts when a jailer said, "You are not satisfied with your crime, but you must kill the white man on top of it." In that jail, the human spirits began to loathe every christian. They only thought of revenge while locked up and beaten. Every day they thought of freedom, and of the traditions that the white men went against. They were taking over, and taking control. They set up new governments, new religion, and new schools. They were presenting themselves as great and as friendly, when in reality they were going against everything the clansmen stood for.

Journal Pages

Date: Thursday, June 26, 2008

Page: 173

Quote: "I wish she were a boy," Okonkwo thought within himself. She understood things so perfectly. Who else among his children could have read his thoughts so well?

Every day as Enzima grew up, Okonkwo wished with all his heart she were a boy. She understood things so perfectly, and she read his thoughts. If she were a boy, she would be the perfect son. He could teach her things, and she would have a title of some sort. She had been through a lot, and she had overcome many things. Enzima was intelligent for her age, and she understood things in such different ways. She was wise beyond her years her mother had once said. Enzima had a different way of thinking, she looked through things with a different perspective. Okonkwo wished she were a boy, because girls were treated like dogs, and all that intelligence would go to waste. He wished the best for his daughter, but not all fathers could for the future was not set in stone.

Date: Thursday, June 26, 2008

Page: 179

Quote: "There are no other gods," said Mr. Brown. "Chukwu is the only God and all others are false. You carve a piece of wood-- like that one, and you call it a god. But it is still a piece of wood."

This quote I found impudent. It is quite rude to put it so bluntly that other people's gods are false, and there is only one god. He says that they carve a piece of wood and call it god, when it's still a piece of wood. Mr. Brown does not have an open mind, when he could link the two religions together. He could see that they have the same basis of thinking, and that putting other people's opinions down. You must be sincere and filled with empathy in order to understand others. You can't just state that your thoughts and traditions are true, and that other's are false. The way that Mr. Brown's clockwork works, is fast and loud. He cannot just put others down in order to attain converts. He should have found another way to achieve great things.

Journal Pages

Date: Thursday, June 26, 2008

Page: 166

Quote: "I beg you to accept this little kola," he said. "It is not to pay you back for all you did for me in these seven years. A child cannot pay for its mother's milk. I have only called you together because it is good for kinsmen to meet." 

Okonkwo after spending seven years in his motherland, thanks his mother's kinsmen for all their kindness. He took refuge in his motherland after killing another clansman by accident, and was banished for seven years. His mother's clansmen did so much for him in those seven years, and he cannot pay them back. He wishes to call them together for it is good for kinsmen to meet. They had a great feast in which it was unexpected for so much food and palm-wine to be presented. Okonkwo's gratitude for his uncle and cousins was so great, and he wished to leave them on a good note. Though he wished to get back to his own clan soon, he wanted to depart his motherland with great leave.

Date: Thursday, June 26, 2008

Page: 172

Quote: "You have all seen the great abomination of your brother. Now he is no longer my son or your brother. I will only have a son who is a man, who will hold his head up among my people."

Since Okonkwo's son abandoned their religion, Okonkwo abandoned his son. He no longer thought him as his kin, but as an outsider. He thought his son was an abomination, and that he will only have a son who is a man. Who will hold his head up among his people. Nwoye converted to Christianity and his bonds with his father broke. People looked upon him as an outcast, and a traitor. Although it felt right to convert, he was quite disheartened when his father disowned him. He was supposed to keep to the gods and idols that his ancestors and father had. He was to pass those traditions and customs down through his children, and their children. Without the line of tradition, there would be no clan religion. Without children believing or following, there would be no gods.