Florida

http://www.best-beaches.com/us/florida/best-florida-beaches

If I could go anywhere in the United States it would probably be the state of Florida.  Florida has many exciting things to offer to a girl like me.  There are several Disney theme parks in Orlando.  These include Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom, and Epcot.  At these parks, you can meet famous Disney characters like Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Minnie Mouse, and Goofy.  You can also eat breakfast with Mickey, have lunch with Pooh Bear, and enjoy dinner with the princesses.  There is also another amusement park called Hollywood Studios.  Here, you can go to Harry Potter World or go on tours and see some movie sets.  I have already visited Disney World and experienced these wonderful things.  I would like to go to Hollywood Studios if I get the chance to go back to Florida.

The state of Florida has really nice beaches.  Every summer, I love going down to Ocean City, Maryland with my family and lying under the sun for hours.  Unlike Ocean City, the water in Florida is crystal clear.  The weather there is amazing.  The one thing I don’t like about it is that it rains everyday around the same time.  When I was at Disney World, we had to plan our day very carefully because we knew it was going to rain.  If it wasn’t so expensive to get plane tickets and a hotel room, I’m almost positive my family would go every summer!

The main reason I want to go to Florida, is because that is where the world championship, called Worlds, for cheerleading is usually held.  Anybody that knows me is aware that one of my goals in life is to take my place on the blue stage in Florida.  Only the best of the best make it this far in the competition.  Each team must work together to hit every motion perfectly.  One mistake and your chance of being world champions is gone.  It is very expensive to enter the arena to watch this competition since it is located in a Walt Disney Resort.  You are required to purchase tickets to the park that the competition is held in.  I think the closest I’m ever going to get to that legendary blue mat is by watching Worlds on ESPN.  This year, Worlds is in seventy-two days!  I absolutely cannot wait until I get the chance to attend the competition.

http://cheerleadersvstheworld.tumblr.com/post/31524277707/ready-for-worlds-2013 

Into the Wild Summary

Somewhere in Alaska, on September 6, 1992, Christopher McCandless was found dead on a bus.  The next year, Jon Krakauer, the author of Into the Wild, followed Christopher’s steps between his college graduation and him dying in Alaska.  Krakauer found that McCandless changed his name to “Alexander Supertramp.”  Jon Krakauer figured out that Christopher’s actions were influenced by the writings of Henry David Thoreau and Jack London.  

http://cdn-4.nflximg.com/images/9319/1069319.jpg

Blind Love in A Midsummer Night's Dream

English 9 Greens

5 February 2013

Blind Love in A Midsummer Night’s Dream

How do you define blind love?  According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the word blind means, “unable or unwilling to discern or judge.”  From the same source, the word love means, “a strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties.”  Those two definitions put together create the definition for the term blind love.  Blind love means having a strong affection for someone, but not being able to see the person’s flaws.  William Shakespeare uses the idea of blind love in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in order to create humor throughout the play.

            Shakespeare exhibits blind love by creating a flower whose nectar blinds the characters’ eyes to the flaws of the object of his or her affection.  In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, an example of blind love is when Robin Goodfellow places the nectar of the flower on Titania’s eyes.  When Titania awakens by the sound of Bottom’s song, she sees him and proclaims, “So is mine eye enthralled to thy shape, / and thy fair virtue’s force perforce doth move me/ On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee” (3.1. 141-143).  This creates humor for the reader because the nectar causes Titania to immediately fall in love with Bottom.  She becomes oblivious to the fact that Bottom has been transformed into an ass and she thinks he is the most beautiful creature on the earth.  Another example of the humor created by blind love is when the nectar causes Lysander to tell Helena that he loves her and that he no longer loves Hermia.  Lysander states, “Look when I vow, I weep; and vows so born,/ In their nativity all truth appears./ How can these things in me seem scorn to you,/ Bearing the badge of faith to prove them true?” (3.2 126-129).  This is humorous because Helena thinks that Lysander is playing a trick on her.  The reader finds humor in her reaction to Lysander’s proclamation of his love for her.

In today’s world, there are many examples of blind love.  During Super Bowl XLVII, GoDaddy.com aired a commercial featuring a beautiful woman kissing an unattractive man.  This demonstrates blind love because she kisses him even though it would seem that his unattractive looks would not attract her.  The company uses the idea of blind love to create humor and to catch the attention of their audience in order to sell their product.  Despite what people may have thought of the commercial, it is successful because it is memorable to the viewer.  In many movies, blind love is used to create humor.  It is commonly found in animated film. In the movie Shrek, the odd pairing of Donkey and the dragon creates humor.  The same thing is true in Madagascar 3 when the lemur and the bear are victims of love at first sight.  In the movie, There’s Something About Mary, staring Ben Stiller, Cameron Diaz, and Matt Dillon, several men see Mary as the ideal woman and fall in love with her without any relationship with her.  They do anything they can to try and get her to choose one of them.  Another example of blind love creating humor is in the movie My Best Friend’s Wedding.  The main character, played by Julia Roberts, has convinced herself that she is in love with her best friend.  She is so blinded by her perceived love for him that she goes to extreme measures to try to break up the couple.

            The plot of William Shakespeare’s play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is based upon blind love.  Shakespeare uses the concept of blind love to create humor throughout the play.  The whole story takes place because Robin puts the nectar on the wrong Athenian’s eyes, which causes a lot of chaos.  The play would not have been funny if blind love was not an element used within the play.  The use of the concept of blind love continues to be used even today as writers develop concepts and story lines that create humor because of the addition of characters that blindly fall in love.  It’s funny to think that blind love can actually exist.  Unless, of course, you have the special flower!

http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/256/d/6/blind_love_by_eka_ekatherine-d37kem6.jpg

Works Cited

Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 05 Feb. 2013.

Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York: Washington Square P, 2003.