Technically this is 30 minutes late, but whatever. This is my Letter About Literature:
Dear Mr. Krakauer,
I have just finished your book, Into Thin Air, and I have to say that it was very intriguing. When I first got this book, I was in a hurry to complete a requirement for my science class, but as I read it I got sucked into the story. I learned a lot from it, and I would like to tell you about what I learned and I may have some questions for you.
I live in Utah at a high altitude relative to most other states in the U.S. I believe it's at about 5,000 ft. I noticed in Into Thin Air that you were measuring how high you were on Mt. Everest in numerals well above 20,000 ft. It is hard for me to imagine the conditions that are at such great heights. It helps put into perspective for me how little I've been around and experienced. I've the chance to hike in higher altitudes, but never before where I've had to stop and rest between such short amounts of time because of the thinness of the air. It's inspiring. In the beginning of the story I wanted to climb Everest myself.
As I read though, I came upon the dangers that were experienced. It's not as easy as it seems. You have to constantly be wary of ice, weather conditions, and your teammates. I related this to my life. As you grow and develop, you have to watch out for the dangers and search for the right path you want to take. Your friends make the difference. If you have good friends who are going to point you in the right direction you are more likely to succeed. Synonymous to your Everest experience, if your friends (or team members) do not know what they are doing or have the wrong idea then there is a much higher chance of failure. Picking your friends wisely is extremely important. If you had had the option of choosing your team who would have been on it? What do you look for in others?
I also noticed that you took a lot of skepticism and criticism from others from reading the afterword. You defended yourself when others thought you were wrong or wanted to make you look bad. In my mind, I applied this to the world. Racism and prejudice are found everywhere I go. What you did helps reinforce what I've learned already: you have to stand up for what you believe to be true. If you rebuke the truth, those who do know it won't trust you.
My last thought is about goals. In your book, you wrote about how when you were younger you really wanted to climb to the peak of Everest, but when you developed a family climbing became a distant thought. When the opportunity came along, though, you jumped at it. Climbing Everest was something amazing and you wanted it. I feel like this when I think about things I could do in our world, even other worlds. In elementary school, I learned that it was people in my age group that would be able to go to Mars. We would be the one's who would fit the requirements when the time came. When I heard this I thought: That's going to be me, and I'm going to make it happen. To be the first one to step foot on Mars would be like being the first on the moon, discovering electricity, quantum theory. It's what you dream of. If you want something badly enough and work as hard as honestly possible you stand a fair chance of obtaining it.
I'd like to thank you for writing Into Thin Air and for the thoughts I derived from it. I'm unsure about if and/or when you will get this letter, but I hope your able to see what others are able to learn from your experience.
From,
Isaac Froisland
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
Into Thin Air
Recently, I've been reading Into Thin Air for my science term project. It's about a climb on Everest that goes horribly wrong but I haven't quite gotten that far.
I like the main character, Jon. He may be quick to judge others but he knows his own limits too. He builds a profile of everybody on the climbing team from their past climbing experiences and how they act around each other. There is a lot of profanity found in this book, but in the copy that I'm reading most of it has been blotted out.
This book doesn't quite seem factual to me. It's more of a "how I saw it" kind of a thing. Jon tells things from his point of view and how remembers then happening a year or two later.
Homework has been piling up for me lately, and I am now just starting to catch up. I'm working on my science project, I've passed of the poem for English, I've begun practicing for orchestra again, but I still need to work on a story for Spanish, finish my project in Manufacturing, and I forgot to do an assignment for English. I want to finish all of this before Christmas vacation and I'll be rushed. Hopefully I can get it done.
I like the main character, Jon. He may be quick to judge others but he knows his own limits too. He builds a profile of everybody on the climbing team from their past climbing experiences and how they act around each other. There is a lot of profanity found in this book, but in the copy that I'm reading most of it has been blotted out.
This book doesn't quite seem factual to me. It's more of a "how I saw it" kind of a thing. Jon tells things from his point of view and how remembers then happening a year or two later.
Homework has been piling up for me lately, and I am now just starting to catch up. I'm working on my science project, I've passed of the poem for English, I've begun practicing for orchestra again, but I still need to work on a story for Spanish, finish my project in Manufacturing, and I forgot to do an assignment for English. I want to finish all of this before Christmas vacation and I'll be rushed. Hopefully I can get it done.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Poem for English
I've just finished memorizing the poem that I have to do for English and I'm going to type it from memory.
A Psalm of Life
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
tell me not in mournful numbers
life is but an empty dream
for the soul is dead that slumbers
and things are not what they seem
life is real! life is earnest!
and the grave is not it's goal
dust thou art, to dust return-est
was not spoken of the soul
not enjoyment, and not sorrow
is our destined end or way
but to act, that each tomorrow
find us further than today
art is long, and time is fleeting
and our hearts, though stout and brave
still, like muffled drums, are beating
funeral marches to the grave
in the world's broad field of battle,
in the bivouac of life,
be not like dumb driven cattle,
be a hero in the strife
trust no future, howe'er pleasant
let the dead past bury its dead
act, act in the living present
heart within, and God o'er head
lives of great men all remind us
we can make our lives sublime
and, departing, leave behind us
footprints in the sands of time
footprints, that perhaps another
sailing o'er life's solemn main
a forlorn and shipwrecked brother
seeing, shall take heart again
let us be up and doing
with a heart for any fate
still achieving, still pursuing
learn to labor and to wait.
A Psalm of Life
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
tell me not in mournful numbers
life is but an empty dream
for the soul is dead that slumbers
and things are not what they seem
life is real! life is earnest!
and the grave is not it's goal
dust thou art, to dust return-est
was not spoken of the soul
not enjoyment, and not sorrow
is our destined end or way
but to act, that each tomorrow
find us further than today
art is long, and time is fleeting
and our hearts, though stout and brave
still, like muffled drums, are beating
funeral marches to the grave
in the world's broad field of battle,
in the bivouac of life,
be not like dumb driven cattle,
be a hero in the strife
trust no future, howe'er pleasant
let the dead past bury its dead
act, act in the living present
heart within, and God o'er head
lives of great men all remind us
we can make our lives sublime
and, departing, leave behind us
footprints in the sands of time
footprints, that perhaps another
sailing o'er life's solemn main
a forlorn and shipwrecked brother
seeing, shall take heart again
let us be up and doing
with a heart for any fate
still achieving, still pursuing
learn to labor and to wait.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Windstorm
On Thursday we had a huge windstorm. The weather people said there were winds blowing at 95 miles per hour. These were the fastest winds that I'd ever felt.
Awoken on Thursday morning by the loud winds, my family had to go through and around the whole house to make sure everything was secure. After doing that, I went to school where all the students who came were sent to the gym. There was no power and they had emergency lights running on an auxiliary generator. Everyone was wondering around, talking with friends and texting, and wondering what we were going to do. They made an announcement saying, "Everyone will go to their 1st period and then we'll figure out what we are going to do." So, I went to Seminary where we held a disruptive devotional. After Seminary we were told to go to our 2nd period, but when we got there the teacher said that she wasn't going to hold class because there wasn't enough students there. My friend and I decided we would go and check with our other teachers to figure out what to do when an administrator, who wasn't very nice about it, told us to go to our 2nd period class. We went back, but as I was walking in the door of the classroom a my friends sister came and got me saying that her mom was here to pick me up. I left the school with them, and we stayed at their house until my parents picked my brother and I up.
By now the storm had dissipated a little bit, and we began cleaning up our yard. Two trees had fallen into our yard from two other neighbors' yards. One was part of a huge willow tree that had bent the chain-link fence in the backyard. My brothers and I cleaned most of that up by ourselves. The neighbor next door had hired someone to clean up the pine tree that had smashed through their vinyl fence into our front yard, and it had been close to hitting my parents bedroom. The worker said, "I'll finish up tomorrow and have your yard cleaned up by morning." He never showed up and my dad was pretty mad about that. We ended up doing it ourselves.
Our house had lost power sometime on Wednesday night, and we had to deal with that the whole day. We couldn't open the refrigerator, had to use flashlights in the house, and didn't really do anything but clean up the yard. We spent that night in front of the fireplace sleeping in makeshift beds and sleeping bags. The power came back on sometime in the morning, and I woke up to find my brother playing Xbox, which I wasn't really surprised to see.
Our ward spent the whole weekend cleaning up the neighborhood. We cut down trees, hauled away debris to the dump, and cleaned up yards. Church was even cancelled on Sunday to do this. I went to a practice for a Christmas choir thinking that I had a lot of meetings to go to, but we were told that they were all cancelled. Instead, we would finish up taking away debris because there was supposed to be another, but smaller, windstorm that night, and we didn't want things blowing away. We've finished up most of it, and I've just now realized all the things I have to do for school. There's a term project check for Science (which I haven't started), reading for English, and I have a test in math on Tuesday.
Awoken on Thursday morning by the loud winds, my family had to go through and around the whole house to make sure everything was secure. After doing that, I went to school where all the students who came were sent to the gym. There was no power and they had emergency lights running on an auxiliary generator. Everyone was wondering around, talking with friends and texting, and wondering what we were going to do. They made an announcement saying, "Everyone will go to their 1st period and then we'll figure out what we are going to do." So, I went to Seminary where we held a disruptive devotional. After Seminary we were told to go to our 2nd period, but when we got there the teacher said that she wasn't going to hold class because there wasn't enough students there. My friend and I decided we would go and check with our other teachers to figure out what to do when an administrator, who wasn't very nice about it, told us to go to our 2nd period class. We went back, but as I was walking in the door of the classroom a my friends sister came and got me saying that her mom was here to pick me up. I left the school with them, and we stayed at their house until my parents picked my brother and I up.
By now the storm had dissipated a little bit, and we began cleaning up our yard. Two trees had fallen into our yard from two other neighbors' yards. One was part of a huge willow tree that had bent the chain-link fence in the backyard. My brothers and I cleaned most of that up by ourselves. The neighbor next door had hired someone to clean up the pine tree that had smashed through their vinyl fence into our front yard, and it had been close to hitting my parents bedroom. The worker said, "I'll finish up tomorrow and have your yard cleaned up by morning." He never showed up and my dad was pretty mad about that. We ended up doing it ourselves.
Our house had lost power sometime on Wednesday night, and we had to deal with that the whole day. We couldn't open the refrigerator, had to use flashlights in the house, and didn't really do anything but clean up the yard. We spent that night in front of the fireplace sleeping in makeshift beds and sleeping bags. The power came back on sometime in the morning, and I woke up to find my brother playing Xbox, which I wasn't really surprised to see.
Our ward spent the whole weekend cleaning up the neighborhood. We cut down trees, hauled away debris to the dump, and cleaned up yards. Church was even cancelled on Sunday to do this. I went to a practice for a Christmas choir thinking that I had a lot of meetings to go to, but we were told that they were all cancelled. Instead, we would finish up taking away debris because there was supposed to be another, but smaller, windstorm that night, and we didn't want things blowing away. We've finished up most of it, and I've just now realized all the things I have to do for school. There's a term project check for Science (which I haven't started), reading for English, and I have a test in math on Tuesday.
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