Bijoy Babu

Language Arts-Johann
5/18/10

The Search for Friendship and True Love

“What! You fell out of the sky?”
“Yes,” I said modestly.
“Oh! That’s funny…” And the little prince broke into a lovely peal of laughter, which annoyed me a good deal.
There is a place for us all in this world, but for one person, he is soon about to find his place and how love is everywhere. This is the story the little prince which is one of the best known books for everyone. The story is about a French aviator who gets a little surprise incident and crash lands on the desert, meanwhile he meets the Little Prince who tells him about his great adventures around the galaxy searching for a true friend, and the meaning of love. This is truly a heart-warming picture and will teach the world. We have heard a lot of true meanings in this story about love and the moral lesson is always looking deeper in life to find true love.
Get ready for one of the biggest adventures that explain the true meaning of our world, feelings and our deepest emotions for one another.
The plot of this story is to find true love and friendship. When you find the pilot stranded in the middle of the desert only to find the little prince and hear his story about his quest. Now by listening to the little prince’s story of finding true friendship and how to care for someone you love. Now this essay is going to be on the three people that have helped the little prince on his quest. We will be reviewing the TVIP’s (Three Very Important People) and see how their part is important to the story. First, we will start with the first character that the little prince met on his way, who was the great king. The king was a very genuine and noble man of course but he had a greed for something and that greed was power. All of the characters in the story have some kind of greed or power that they posses. The King had power and greed to tell people or his loyal subjects what to do. Now what the King really needed was his royal subjects, he was living all alone like this for a long time and he would only give out commands that are possible. Since the little prince is going on, let’s follow him to the next character which is the very vain man.
Now the second character that the little prince met on his way was the very vain man who had a lot going on with his life. The vain man would never hear anything but praise to himself. That is his greed. He is totally obsessed with himself and is very proud of himself. Now the little prince also had a problem with the vain man too. As you can see, because he is so obsessed with himself, he doesn’t care about other people. Like when the little prince was asking him questions (like he always does) he expects to get answers, but the vain man just ignored him just like anyone else, but later on had to just spit it out. That person was not the most respectful man the little prince had met. Now let’s just hope the next man would be better.
Nope, this is not good, the next man is not better, but a little bit of a drinker. We call him, the drunkard. Now the drunkard was a very unusual man for the little prince, may be because this is his first time even seeing one. What do you think the drunkard’s obsession is? It’s too obvious, it’s the obsession of alcohol which many people face today in our planet. Yes it is a big obsession, and it is also an addict, one slurp; one taste could knock you right into it. Although the drunkard was drunk, he wasn’t very bright nor did he have a sense of happiness or madness. He was just a drunken old guy. The little prince didn’t have such a hard time but couldn’t get any questions answered, well because, you know what. We are finally on our last part of this essay, the conclusion, were we will compare all our characters for the final test.
Now we are at our conclusion, let’s review the characters. The king: obsessed with power. The vain man: obsessed with himself and the drunkard: obsessed with alcohol. We all know that without these characters (that include many more) there would be no story and you wouldn’t really learn anything from this book. Antoine de Saint-Exupery did a magnificent, marvelous job with this book. It has a lot of love and soul. It was an excellent book to all of us, the children and even the adults. So we all had to say this was a truly wonderful book, and we know that the little prince finally found what he needed, a little bit of love and friendship. The little prince was a very gentle funny little person, and we’ll always miss him.

Bijoy Babu
Language Arts
3/14/10
Tom Sawyer the Glorious Whitewasher.

“Say, Jim, I’ll fetch the water if you’ll whitewash some.” said Tom
So this starts the wonderful story, well, not exactly wonderful….but a miraculous story of one of the best known Englishmen of the 19th century in American Literature. His name was Tom Sawyer, an amazing character that was originally made by Mark Twain. In the story the glorious whitewasher, you find Tom having trouble whitewashing the fence and is lazy, but when he calls for help later. He gets himself into a nasty and terrible situation. Will Tom be a good boy and finish the fence by himself, or will he run off into trouble and make someone else do it for him, to escape into another prank of course.
To begin with, the beginning of the story you find Tom on a gorgeous Saturday morning where we see Tom getting ready for work. The whole story is really a mode of comedy if you look at it. To start of a comedy, you look at the first point, which is the normal everyday life of Tom. In the beginning, you see Tom inspecting and what appears to start whitewashing. The second point is the conflict arises, and it is the fault of the main character. The problem as you know is that he bribes people to help him whitewash the fence for some tiny valuables and toys. To do this, he makes them think its fun and they want to do it themselves. It’s Just like that, pretty easy for a boy like Tom. So after he gets into all this trouble, with his friends not knowing this, he realizes what he has done but not all of it. Remember that Tom is a pretty naughty boy and he doesn’t realize stuff that easily. Many boys came to whitewash the fence like Jim, the African American who works for Aunt Polly. The resolution occurs when Tom and the boys finally run out of whitewash. That is like when the whole story comes to a twist and it is all over. The only way that Tom was free was the whitewash, but somewhere in the middle of that, he meets his friend Ben, who thinks he’s a captain of a boat. Hey talk and have all this fun, while they are wasting time doing their work. At the end of the story Tom is back to his regular old self again. The whitewash is all gone and there is nothing else to do. It is the end of Tom’s freedom and his fun. Now he has to find another way to get some free time….
There are many characters in this story. As you know, Tom is the main character. Tom is just a young boy, probably in his teens. He is very naughty at times and wants to have free time forever. Wants to escape into a freedom world, where he can do anything he wants. The only thing that his friends and other people should look out for is that he is very clever and smart. He can probably get out of any bad situation, but doesn’t know what is right or wrong. Then we have Ben, who thinks he is a sailor of the famous ship, the Missouri. Now you might think he is pretty crazy but he is smart enough to go into Tom’s traps and is also smart well. He is about the same age as Tom and they make a pretty good match, but in other cases they are very different indeed. He knows a lot about ships and the sea. Another character is Jim, the African American who works for Aunt Polly. He works a lot in the fields and such but never gets time for free time. Unlike Tom, he likes to work and have a good life. Jim is a very hard working and good soul. He pretty smart, but one time in the beginning of the story, he almost fell for the whitewashing trick to Tom. Good thing he got out of it in time. The last character is Aunt Polly who is also a hard working person. Unlike Tom again, she likes working but is not the most interesting person and the nicest person you ever met.
There are not that many symbols in the story, but there are some main symbols like the whitewash, now the whitewash is the main symbol in this whole story. You have this little bucket of white liquid that Tom can control his friends in. At the end, so many kids came and whitewashed that the entire fence was finally whitewashed and clean. Another symbol in the story is Tom’s collectibles and tiny toys that he gets from his friends. This symbolizes the greed and the wealth of the pranks that Tom Sawyer holds in hands. He is very smart and is clever, but can bribe and control people fairly easy with his tricks. The next symbol you could say is the fence, before it is whitewashed of course. Before it was just an old, brown, long piece of wood. Now it is a whole new thing. The fence really represents the whitewash actually. The whitewash is the other half of the fence and they both make a complete new thought. The last symbol we have here is the Missouri, which is the boat that one of Tom’s friends, Ben is impersonating. The imaginary ship that Ben wanted to always ride in his life. The ship is symbolizing the friendship of the boat and Ben. He was a pretty good impersonator but he never had anything else on his mind so he was pretty, well, you could say dumb.
The last part is the conclusion. We have seen that throughout the story, Tom has been a pretty mean kid, without really telling the truth to his friends but he still got a lot of values. The only thing we now is that Tom has a bit realized that he did something bad, but naughty kids never admit it. Let’s just pray that he doesn’t get into any more trouble.

Bijoy Babu

1/11/10

Language Arts

The Circuit

Can you imagine moving to place from place almost every season just because your family can't earn enough money from your job? Losing everything you knew and loved? What a disappointment! Just think if you were in the main character's shoes, which is a young boy named Panchito. He has yet lived another season of moving from place to place. What will he soon learn and discover here, in his new home in Fresno, California? Fransisco Jimenez recreates these scenes in his book, the "Circuit," and we learn that Panchito must gain some courage to keep moving on, to never stop trying to give up. He knows that he is struggling with the moving but if he can survive it, he can try to get use to it.

The story starts off with Panchito before moving to Fresno, California. He gets ready to move, packing. You find out that they are a poor family, a migrant family. Their dad, his brother and himself are the only ones with jobs in the family, which is picking fruit from the vineyards. The whole story really is mixed with the author's own life as a child. The Circuit was almost his regular childhood moving from place to place. As you read the book, you see that Panchito has a interdependent life with his family, because his family has to keep moving. He has no friends whatsoever. The only remembrance of their families past is only their mother's cooking pot. The cooking pot is a symbolic of the family's togetherness. It was almost time for moving again. You see Panchito's dad putting some boxes in their family's only car, the Plymouth 38. This is their only form of transportation. Their dad calls it the "Caracanchita." When he first bought it, he inspected every inch of it to see if it will serve well for the family. It was a very impressive car and will also be a remembrance of Panchito's family forever. Now, they are finally heading for a new home, a new beginning.

Panchito has now arrived at his new home, in Fresno, California. It's time to unpack the boxes to a new life. His new home is a important symbol in the story, a shack, which symbolizes a poor, dirty, rotten place. it will be hard to live in their, it's a risk to take. The ceiling was eaten up by a colony of termites and the ground was gray, dull, and slimy, dominated by living and dead earthworms. He has had no friends for a long time. He has a very upsetting life as a migrant family. His only friends that could and perhaps ever will be is his family. He sees that there might be no luck for him. Like all the other homes he had, this one wouldn't be any different. Now Panchito and his brother are resting in the fields by the vineyards. After a long day's of work they see a school bus come by. Immediately they run for cover as fast as they can. You see, Panchito can't go to school, his parents can't afford it. This is one of the reasons that their job is bad. They can't afford that much and try to save as much as possible for necessities. They can't be seen by the school because every one's child living in the county has to go to school, so if the school finds Panchito and his brother are not going to school, they will force them to. The only thing is, they just can't afford it. After the school bus has left Panchito has met up with his brother and father to finally have a talk. His father said that one of them can go to school. Panchito and his brother didn't understand but their father was telling the truth. He said that Panchito was the one. Panchito was so surprised he actually got to go to school but then a sense of guilt ran through his mind. He actually felt guilty that his brother couldn't go to school with him. If there was any way for his brother to go to school with him, he would do it! Panchito something that wasn't fault.

Today, is the day that Panchito has to got to school. He still feels guilty that he is the only one that is going to school. He wants his brother to come to. It's still weird that he is guilty and felling bad about something that wasn't his fault. He has his first day at school and is seated in his class. His L.A. teacher, Mr. Lema introduced him to the class. Panchito was very nervous, he should have been because this is his first time to a school and he doesn't know English. Mr. Lema has given everyone in the class a book. Panchito was a little worried when he first saw the title of the book, it read: it was an English book. When the teacher asked Panchito to read the book, Panchito got really nervous. He started reading but mumbled the words. He was getting really annoyed and embarrassed. Finally when Mr. Lema came he asked Panchito to if he can speak English. You could feel that Panchito was really struggling and the English book in the story is symbolizing great pain and also struggle. Mr. Lema is hear to help Panchito learn English and Panchito is really felling good and o.k. From the following weeks Panchito has gained one friend, his L.A. teacher. I those weeks he wanted to learn how to play the trumpet in his whole life. Finally he got a chance to learn it. He was really adapting to the school. After about a month, he went home one day and discovered the mos terrible thing, he was shocked. It was the worst thing possible....he had to move. He saw the boxes and finally knew what it meant. He had to end his life here, in Fresno and now move somewhere else. His new life ends again. All that time has now gone to waste. Now he has to start his life all over again.

The overall review of this story, the Circuit shows amazingly detailed story about a migrant boy's life from moving from place to place. It is a tragic story but he gains hope. Then he losses it at the end of the book when he finds out he has to move again when his family just settled. It is a very good book, has lots of heart. It is a sad story but has Lot's of life. I think Fransisco Jimenez did an excellent job writing this book.