3rd Quarter Reflection Blog

The area I believe I made the most improvement in was my background information on the Holocaust. What I mean by this was that my overall understanding on the Holocaust has drastically changed and has gotten better then before. Before we took a lot of time to learn about it, I had some understanding on the subject. I had a small idea as to what happened and what was going during those years, but I wasn't a total expert on it. After our month long lesson on it, our eyes finally opened. We learned about the tragic events that occurred during these difficult years. It was very terrible and unfortunate. The pain and misery that those people who lost their lives had to go through. Especially for the ones who are thankfully still here today and can tell their dreadful story to other people. I'm just glad we were able to learn this and know how important it is to know what had happened.

Something that I accomplished this quarter and am still to this day am proud of was my butterfly for the butterfly project. It was very difficult for me to do it. I am not a very artistic person, so a task like this would be out of my comfort zone. I was worrying about it the whole week before it was due and had no idea what I was going to do. I obviously needed help so I seeked help from my aunt who is very artistic. She's so good at art and even paints pictures in her free time. I knew she would be the right person to call. After about two hours of planning, her and I did the project together and it looked fantastic. I knew we were going to do something out of the ordinary. No one in the class had did paper mache like I did. It did take some time, but in the end was totally worth it. I am proud of myself for doing it and am thankful that my aunt was there to help me.

An issue I had during third quarter was managing my time. What I mean by this was being able to devote time for ELA at home. Like trying to find time to do homework or trying to get some reading in. I'm not sure why, but this has been an ongoing issue for me and I'm not sure why. I do my ELA homework so late at night and tend to procrastinate a little bit. What I want to try to do to overcome this problem is finding a quiet place for me to work first. I would probably be more productive working somewhere quiet rather than somewhere where there's a lot of noise. I also want to try and take all my distractions away from my space so I don't procrastinate. This is a goal I wish to accomplish by the time we come back from spring break.

Night Blog

Throughout the book Night by Elie Wiesel, Elie made tremendous changes after what happened to him during the Holocaust. His whole experience within all these camps caused him to transform negatively. Being in all of these camps made him give up his faith with God and his will to live. A lot happened to him and his father that brought so much pain and misery that no one I know has ever had to go through. No one I know had to be separated from their family/friends, work extreme hours no teenager should work, or almost die multiple times. You have to be a really strong person to be able to survive something like that which is why I envy his bravery and strength.

One way Elie made a colossal change was by completely giving up his faith in God. First off, I should explain that Elie was a very pious person (very religious). He literally wanted to seek out a mentor to better understand his religion and properly practice it. He was that invested and interested in the Cabala. A quote from the the book states, “By day I studied Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple” (Wiesel 1). This quote alone doesn't prove that Elie tried seeking a mentor, but it does indeed state how much time he invests to study his religion he truly cares about. All in all, Elie was very religious at the beginning of Night and everyone who read took notice if that trait.

Everything was going pretty well for Elie and his family. That soon needed once the SS invaded his town in Sighet. They used Elie's small and peaceful town as a ghetto, a ghetto no different then the others being constructed by the Nazis. This event along with many others slowly transformed. Day by day he was forming into this whole other person who was very different from the Elie in the beginning of Night. He no longer was pious by the end of the book. A notorious passage within Night by Elie states how he feels about God and what his thoughts are on Him. “NEVER SHALL I FORGET that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky. Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith for- ever. Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes. Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.” (Wiesel 32). It's worth mentioning at this point, we haven't even gotten halfway through his story. This was only the beginning and Elie had already shared with the reader how he feels about God and His silence. The passage not only shows when Elie lost his faith, but it also shows just how angry he is. Angry that this happened to him, his family, and his people. He is angry and disappointed with God.

During all that had happened, Elie had lost both his religion and his will to live. It was very difficult for him to just keep going. It just got harder and harder for him and his father to live like animals. To live in these terrible conditions they were all in and were expected to keep this lifestyle until they were executed. Along with other struggles Elie had to face, his main struggle was maintaining his will to stay alive. A quote from Night states, “I had to stay at Buchenwald until April eleventh. I have nothing to say of my life during this feeling. It no longer mattered. After my father’s, nothing could touch me anymore” (Wiesel 107). At this point in time, Elie felt lower then ever. There were certain points within the book that he felt death was an escape, but this just shows how his life was no longer a priority. He no longer had a purpose to live an extra day.

Luckily, Wiesel powered through just a little more to finally live as a free man. However, the events that occurred in Night still changed him. He couldn't take what happened in those camps back and had to live with all of those experience before he died not to long ago. In conclusion, what happened to Elie so long ago effected him greatly.

Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York: Bantam , 1958. Print.