User talk:Asimms7

Aaron Simms Avid 3, 3rd Period 9/21/09

Music plays a major part in how people do things. The way they walk, talk, dance, dress, and just how they act. There are many types of music. There’s rap music, hip hop, country, r & b, rock & roll, heavy metal, and many other genres. Music can do a lot to a person. They could’ve had a horrible day at work, at school, or anywhere then they go home and put on some music and it could change there whole attitude. As the years go by music changes. Right now it’s the rap and R & B era.

Music can make you happy, sad, excited, angry, hyped up, and many other ways. For example before a game I might listen to my MP3 and if I listen to some Lil Wayne or Plies ill get hyped up and ready to play. It helps you focus and it calms you down. Or if you’re trying to sleep but cant you should listen to some music to calm u down and help you sleep.

I know people who listen to slow songs before games and it gets them ready to play, I don’t see how but it does. I know many people who are greatly inspired/ influenced by classical music where to others it is meaningless. It's a matter of opinion. You could ask 100 different people and get 100 different answers. Depends on the person, their personality, their family/friend influences, their IQ, even gender or nationality/geography, or whatever mood they happen to be in on any given day. Also depends on how you are trying to influence them. Or what you are trying to influence them to do. Will heavy metal make them sleep? Will classical make them want to throw a keg party? Will rap make them cry? All music influences people. However, different types of music influence them in different ways. Also, each person is influenced differently by it.

Music can also influence people in negative ways. The number one way music influences us is in our mood. If we are upset or down about something, and we then listen to one of our favorite, up-beat, more happy songs. Fact is, our mood is going to change. If we are already happy, and we then listen to a slow, sappy song, that makes us think of sad things in our life. Some music is negative, but I don’t think that it can make u do something. It depends on who you are and what kind of values you have.

Rap music has come to be one of the most popular, yet controversial, music genres of the past decade. People think that rap songs are usually accompanied by use of explicit and degrading lyrics, which are very dangerous to the youth of today and that they are setting bad examples. I agree that some of the lyrics may not be the best thing to listen to but at the same time its just music. I mean I am not going to go out and shoot up somebody or rob a bank, its just entertainment.

AARON SIMMS 10/5/09 The Old Man and the Sea

The Old Man and the Sea is a novella by Ernest Hemingway, written in Cuba in 1951 and published in 1952. It was the last major work of fiction to be produced by Hemingway and published in his lifetime. One of his most famous works, it centers upon Santiago, an aging Cuban fisherman who struggles with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream.

The Old Man and the Sea recounts an epic battle between an old, experienced fisherman and a giant marlin said to be the largest catch of his life. It opens by explaining that the fisherman, who is named Santiago, has gone 84 days without catching any fish at all. He is apparently so unlucky that his young apprentice, Manolin, has been forbidden by his parents to sail with the old man and been ordered to fish with more successful fishermen. Still dedicated to the old man, however, the boy visits Santiago's shack each night, hauling back his fishing gear, feeding him and discussing American baseball — most notably Santiago's idol, Joe DiMaggio. Santiago tells Manolin that on the next day, he will venture far out into the Gulf to fish, confident that his unlucky streak is near its end. On the eighty-fifth day, Santiago sets out alone, taking his skiff far into the Gulf. He sets his lines and, by noon of the first day, a big fish that he is sure is a marlin takes his bait. Unable to pull in the great marlin, Santiago instead finds the fish pulling his skiff. Two days and two nights pass in this manner, during which the old man bears the tension of the line with his body. Though he is wounded by the struggle and in pain, Santiago expresses a compassionate appreciation for his adversary, often referring to him as a brother. He also determines that because of the fish's great dignity, no one will be worthy of eating the marlin. On the third day of the ordeal, the fish begins to circle the skiff, indicating his tiredness to the old man. Santiago, now completely worn out and almost in delirium, uses all the strength he has left in him to pull the fish onto its side and stab the marlin with a harpoon, thereby ending the long battle between the old man and the tenacious fish. Santiago straps the marlin to his skiff and heads home, thinking about the high price the fish will bring him at the market and how many people he will feed. While Santiago continues his journey back to the shore, sharks are attracted to the trail of blood left by the marlin in the water. The first, a great mako shark, Santiago kills with his harpoon, losing that weapon in the process. He makes a new harpoon by strapping his knife to the end of an oar to help ward off the next line of sharks; in total, five sharks are slain and many others are driven away. But by night, the sharks have almost devoured the marlin's entire carcass, leaving a skeleton consisting mostly of its backbone, its tail and its head, the

Latter still bearing the giant spear. The old man castigates himself for sacrificing the marlin. Finally reaching the shore before dawn on the next day, he struggles on the way to his shack, carrying the heavy mast on his shoulder. Once home, he slumps onto his bed and enters a very deep sleep. A group of fishermen gather the next day around the boat where the fish's skeleton is still attached. One of the fishermen measures it to be eighteen feet from nose to tail. Tourists at the nearby café mistakenly take it for a shark. Manolin, worried during the old man's endeavor, cries upon finding him safe asleep. The boy brings him newspapers and coffee. When the old man wakes, they promise to fish together once again. Upon his return to sleep, Santiago dreams of lions on the African beach.