The Great Gatsby: Chapter Uno

This book so far seems like the opposite point of view of The Grapes of Wrath. In fact, when I saw that the rich snot's name was Tom, I thought of Tom from "Grapes," even though this Tom is pretty much nothing like our previous Tom. (I kind of found it funny how Nick would always refer to him as Tom Buchanan instead of just Tom.)
I guess opposites must attract because Daisy was like the complete opposite of Tom. Even though they both had a rich air to them, Daisy seemed to be a bubbly and perky person with slight ADD, while Tom seemed crabby and controlling. Once he mensioned how the whites were the superior race, which showed more of his arrogance.
I kind of enjoyed some of Nick's sarcasm. Like when Daisy asked if anyone missed her, he said, "The whole town is desolate. All the cars have the left rear wheel painted black as a mourning wreath and there's a persistent wail all night long along the North Shore." I thought it was kind of funny because--unless they had different colors of tires back then--the left back tire would already be black.
I felt sorry for Daisy when she found out Tom was cheating on her. I found a certain phrase she said interesting: "...that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool." I guess that that could somewhat be true with the society we live in today because there's more emphasis placed on beauty than brilliance, and I'm sure that back then a woman's opinion really wasn't of any importance at all.
I'm kind of wondering what Gatsby is going to be like. He is a rich man in a mansion, but he seemed quiet and content at the first sight Nick took of him. To me, he seemed less arrogant than the other rich folks and I'm kind of curious about what his personality is going to be like.

Essay: Comparison/Contrast

Mer & Me
October 24, 2007

As we strolled through the silent aisles of the store, she screamed suddenly in a whispering, excited tone, “Ahhh!” pointing her finger frantically and hopping up and down, the words sped out of her mouth, “Look! Look! Look! Look at them! SHOES! Ahh! I want them!”
Glancing over at them and shrugging my shoulders, I said dryly, “Nyeh, they’re okay,” and returned to the rack of black band T-shirts I was skimming through.
“Okay? OK! How can you say that! They’re, like, the best shoes ever!” she screamed cheerfully and scampered away quickly to obtain her treasure.
Friends always have to have something in common with each other so they can get along…but some friends—even the closest of buddies—can be as opposite as a microwave and a refrigerator; and this, along with others, is one of the numerous differences between my friend Mer and me.
Scouting for shoes, her absolute favorite pastime, is one activity that Mer takes part in daily. Surprisingly, she doesn’t plan when and where she’s going to look for her shoes because she marks almost everything on a calendar before she steps foot out of the house. A perfectionist at heart, she’s incredibly particular in most of the activities she pursues…especially drawing. When Mer sketches a picture, the eraser is usually rubbed aggressively down to a small nub; and she can spend an hour redrawing the same line to make it perfect. But before one frowns on this, know that she can take almost any cartoon picture or drawing and sketch it to look like a near copy of the original.
As “perfect” as she is with everything else, Mer always seems to have some flaw with her body that she needs to go to the doctor for. From a nerve disorder that prevents her from competing in sports to nearly “bottoming out” from lack of sugar, there always seems to be some reason to take her in for a check up.
But Mer doesn’t let a little “medical problem” stop her from enjoying herself. Actually, she sees the need for sugar as an excuse to completely engorge her body with junk food as she plops down on the couch to watch one of the millions of movies she has in her collection. Even though her nerve disorder may cause “disorder” in her daily walking, she still loves to dance and keeps in rhythm with her favorite songs as she pops, locks, and drops what her mama gave her across the dance floor of a party.
I am completely opposite of this. The only dancing that really comes from my body is spontaneous spurts of flailing my arms everywhere and just going with the flow of the music, there’s really no structure to it—just like the planning I do, which is little to none and not really that big of a deal since most of my plans slip my mind anyways. Tending to ride by the seat of my over worn, ripped pants, I usually don’t plan too much for anything because my plans are subject to change at any given moment—mostly because of my involvement in sports.
Yes, my schedule tends to transform itself frequently because of the added physical activity, which alters my eating and sleeping habits. For example, I get home late from games, which gives me absolutely no time to sit down with a bowl of salty, sugar-filled sweets and watch a two-hour long movie. And as much as I absolutely love junk food and how it gets into enraged altercations with my stomach, I tend to stay away from the saccharine delicacies.
Receiving a small stomach ache from soda or over-buttered popcorn isn’t exactly a phone call to the doctor for me either. In my family, somebody either has to be bleeding or dying to waste money on seeing some guy in a white coat to give them a prescription for the problem. Most of the “diseases” that we come down with are toughened out and aren’t cured by relying strictly on a drug.
Another aspect of not being reliant on something is my drawing. I absolutely have no patience to sit at a desk and hunch over a sketch for ten hours trying to make it a twin to the image being drawn from. Preferring to scribble strange creations from my own demented mind, I usually only have the tolerance to speed-draw my picture instead of making it perfect…which can result in an extremely messy, eraser-stained sheet of gray paper.
Now, although we differ in countless ways—more than those just listed above—there are some common interests and personality quirks that we have that are close in comparison to each other. For instance, we are both incredibly unstable people. Swinging from being loud, obnoxious, and giggly to screaming and fuming with rage to sulking and whining depressively, our moods can be altered at the snap of a finger. With the attention span of a half-dead goat, the snap of a finger may be the only way to get our full concentration as well.
But our interest is fully alert when we both scream until our voices grow hoarse, head-bang until our necks go out, and jump until our knees lock up at rock concerts together. The feeling of waiting for the final pun in a Dane Cook joke seems to catch our ears too before we both fall over in our chairs and laugh until our lungs are numb.
Hair-tangling joyriding across the pastures on 4-wheelers and the quiet relaxing element that is found in writing seem to be two opposite activities that mix well with both of us. Like the opposite ends of two magnets, the opposites of our attitudes and our ways of life pull us towards each other and keep us glued, but the similarities between us give grounds to relate with each other on. Opposites are needed to create balance, and even though Mer and I are identical in a couple of our entertainment preferences, it’s the differing aspects about us that are crucial to keeping us close.

Grapes of Wrath: pgs. 448-502 (end)

Well, first of all, may I voice my opinion for the end of the book? WTF?! I was kind of disappointed because it didn't really tell you what Tom did next (even though we can kind of guess what happened to him). The part with Rosasharn at the end was kind of...shocking--I guess you could say. It was a good thing that she helped the old man though--even if he didn't want her to--but it was kind of...well, you know. I guess some good came out of her not having her baby. I must wonder, though: Did Rosasharn know that she was going to have a miscarriage? When Ma asked her about picking cotton, she looked at her belly and insisted upon working...I'm curious about this.
I found it kind of interesting, too, how Pa called Ruthie a b**** for ratting out Tom. I must somewhat agree with Pa though because Ruthie was becoming a huge pain in the butt. I'd find the word "brat" more fitting than "b****" though.
I found it kind of funny how Al promised this other girl that he'd marry her at the other camp and now he's deciding to marry Aggie. I guess it just shows you how people change...or other things that I could mention but won't. Al must have a thing for blondes because the other girl was blonde too. I think he cares more about Aggie though because he was going to leave the other girl and come back (yeah right) when now, if the family had to leave, he would want to stay with Aggie.
I was also amused by the sign the land-owner had put out for his 20 acres of cotton...for some reason, I just found it funny that he wrote the words in crayon.
One part that I found related to real life today was how the Joads went out and bought things that weren't really necessary for their survival (like new clothes and such). Uncle John even said that they really didn't want beer, he just wanted to buy something. I guess that that's just human nature--how we like to use our money for more pleasure than necessity when we get the chance. They may be regretting buying new clothes now that they're out of food though.
I really wasn't too thrilled with the ending. It just kind of cut off the story and really left you hanging. Maybe the author wanted you to use your imagination and guess what happens next.
So I think that the Joads will be alright and they will get through this hardship. (Maybe Tom will stir up a little trouble with those in power too.)

Grapes of Wrath: pgs. 386-448

Well, this section of reading started out contently for the Joads but just seemed to go downhill. I'm betting that they're going to really regret leaving that government camp. (I thought they could get money by cleaning up the camp or something. Why didn't they just do that for food?)
The new camp they're at up north is intolerant. The guards look down on the Okies. I found the part with Ma at the store kind of intersting. But what she said at the end made sense to me. She said something about how if you need something, only a poor man will give it to you, which I find is for the most part true. If you've never been hungry, you won't know the pain another person is going through when they're begging for food; but if you have, you will most likely take pity on that person and give them food. Speaking of food, I find it kind of funny how Tom was complaining at the beginning of the book because he was so used to getting food the same time every day...now look at his eating habbits.
I was pleasantly surpised when Casy came back into the story, but I had never expected him to get his skull smashed in by an angry guy with a pitch-handle (or whatever the weapon was). I can somewhat understand Tom's rage and could invision his reaction to Casy's death pretty clearly in my mind.
Ma's favorite in the family seems to be Tom. She depends on him more than she does her husband. It's almost like the roles of Tom and Pa were switched around. For that time period, Ma suposedly should've been leaning on Pa and giving Tom orders; but I suppose she did say she was trying to keep Pa sane by keeping him mad (which sounds kind of funny if you don't think of it as the angry kind of mad).
I'm curious as to whats going to happen next. Tom's face is bruised and scarred and he could get caught, Winfield was sick, Rose of Sharon is going to have her baby soon, Pa's loosing his place as the head of the family, and Al is thinking of leaving.
The family's bad attitudes just kind of shows you how "animal" we can become when we are deprived of our basic needs.

Grapes of Wrath: pgs. 336-386

First of all, I found that one lady in the camp really bizarre. The lady that said that Rosasharn's baby was going to die if she went "play-actin'" or "hug-dancin'" when really that would probably happen to her if she was malnourished like the other women that lost their babies. I thought some of her ideas to be off the wall because she said that babies would burn in hell if their parents sinned, but I think that somewhere in the Bible it says that God will take care of the children. The lady and her fellow people would also glare in contempt at those who were dancing. Somehow the word contempt doesn't seem like a very Christian thing to be practicing. Her whole attitude of her being better than everyone else kind of bugged me too.
When Ruthie and Winfield went to go play with the other kids and Ruthie took the racket from the girl with the braids, I was glad that the other kids didn't play with her and taught her a lesson. She was kind of becoming a brat and like Tom said somewhere earlier in the book, she had a beating coming (or something like that). It kind of put her in her place.
Human nature was kind of shown at one of its lowest levels when the people would be starving and the rich folks would just let the food spoil because they weren't getting enough money from it. They threw some food in rivers and stopped the people from getting it even though they were becoming diseased from lack of food. I find that very "Hitler-ish" and cruel.

Grapes of Wrath: pgs 280-336

I enjoyed the part of this section of reading where Casy kicks the policeman in the neck and knocks him out. I feel sorry for the woman whose fingers were blown off, but at least Tom tripped the man so he didn't kill Floyd.
One part that I found odd, though, was when the people surrounded the Joads truck and stopped them. At least they were prepared with the wrench and the jack (I believe it was a jack) to try and defend themselves. It's a good thing Ma held Tom back or else he probably would've killed somebody. But the part that was different for me was the fact that Tom almost began sobbing. I think that he was either so scared that the people would hurt someone in the family or else it hurt him so much to hold back from hitting someone...maybe a combo of both, I'm not really sure.
I thought the part with Winfield and Ruthie and the toilets was kind of amusing. Ruthie was bragging about having gone to the bathroom in one and she compared it to the material that their plates are made out of. It was funny how they thought Winfield broke the toilet because he flushed it. It just kind of shows how naive they were as kids who'd always lived in the country. It also showed some nature of how children are in how they try to brag to each other and be all "important" and are not always truthful. Ruthie said that she wouldn't tell anybody that Winfield broke the toilet and then she blurted it out to Ma. Although, Winfield seemed to forget about it right away because he didn't say anything.
I guess the bathroom scene showed how children can be naive and get embarrassed, but it also showed how adults do the same thing when Ma realized that she was in the Men's bathroom.