Category: Student Work
Brisk Moments
Blood of Olympus Or End of Olympus?
By Gwyneth Schloer
The giants have risen along with thousands of long passed-away monsters who have only one thought on their minds: “Awake Gaea and take revenge”. In this finale to a long and adventure-filled series, heroes Annabeth, Jason, Percy, Leo, Piper, Hazel, Nico, Frank, Reyna, and Coach Hedge are aboard the Argo II trying to save the world from destruction, as the Greek and Roman camps attempt to slaughter each other.
The Mother Earth Goddess, Gaea, is rising from her once eternal slumber, and the only thing in the way of her rising, is the blood of a male and female hero, the Blood of Olympus. If she wakes, it is almost certain the world will end. Caught up in their petty rivalry that has taken place for hundreds of years, the Roman camp doesn’t even know that they should be helping the heroes fight against Gaea. Malicious, self-centered and evil Octavian decides it is the camp’s best interest to target and kill the Greek camp in order to end the God’s silence. What the Romans and Octavian don’t know is that the Gods are silent because they are suffering from an extreme case of multiple personailty disorder. Due to the conflict taking place between the Romans and the Greeks, the Roman and Greek sides of the Gods both want their side to win, so the Gods’ brains are constantly switching between personalites. In order to stop this so that the Gods can assist in the saving of the world, the two sides must stop fighting. Only then will the demigods and Gods be able to team up and defeat Gaea and her evil army of Giants. With Octavian in charge manipulating the Roman legion’s minds, there is no chance that peace will happen any time soon. The only chance that the Greeks have at surviving relies on the Athena Parthenos statue that was retrieved by the demigod heroes. It is said that the statue has magical powers, so the heroes decide this might be a good way to defend the Greeks from the pending Roman attack. The only trouble is, how are they to get it across the world in such a small amount of time? On the other side of the world, while Reyna, Nico, and Coach Hedge attempt to bring the Athena Parthenos to Long Island, its home, the heroes on Argo II are trying to kill all the giants that have risen in order to make sure they don’t succeed in awaking Gaea.
Writer Rick Riordan provides an outstanding ending to his five-part epic, Heroes of Olympus, in The Blood of Olympus. Not only does he bring back the stories of the Gods and the heroes, but he also inserts jokes, slang, references, and items relevant to today’s society, such as a Wii remote and the series Doctor Who. The dynamic characters, or heroes, in The Blood of Olympus represent the ideal humans and their flaws and imperfections. Even the relationships between each character were carefully thought out based on what mood the character was in, who was in the room, and what had just happend or what was about to happen. In this desperate fight to stop the ever-nearing end of the world, the author mixed in stories of love, tragedy, and comedy. This modern twist on Greek and Roman mythology deserves a full five-star rating.
Five Minutes
Pathway to Success
Business Letter to Nintendo
Being Harish Karumuri
Being Harish Karumuri
The book is very well written, using a sense of living life to its fullest, feeling loss, and joy of a person trying to find out who he really is. This also has a scenario of what to do when life is controlling you, not the other way around.
The main character, who goes by many different names, but mainly as a character named “Hank”, wakes up at Penn Station without knowing who he is. The first person he sees is a psychopath named “Frankie,” a guy who will eat anything from ID cards to wallets and pages of books. The only items Hank has are a 10 dollar bill and a book called, “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau, an abolitionist with many careers such as an author and a poet. Thoreau has a major effect on the book by giving Hank a pathway through the story, giving him a person to connect and feel to, especially when no one was with him. This book personifies a quote by Thoreau; “Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.”
A good component of the story is the adventure. Hank has no idea about who he is or where he is from, but tries to figure out when life starts to stress him out, especially when he accidentally kills someone. Led by the book in his hands, he goes to Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts in order to see if he can remember who he is.
The upbeat part of the story is when Hank meets a person named Jack, who gives him shelter, food, and a job at the library. He then befriends many people, and even gets a girlfriend. Life seems to be simple, and most of all, he seems to be happy. However, he still goes searching for who he is and wants to figure out how he got to the place he was at now. Throughout the book, there seems to be a struggle between himself and a “beast” that seems to guard his memory and prevent him from remembering his past. However, once he finally gets information about himself, he freaks out trying to figure out what he should do next.
The end was very beautiful, as he begins to see everything come through. In spite of the hardships to leaving this new life, he decides to go back to who he really was and live his old life. That “struggle” is what makes the entire story very well written and enjoyable to read. This was one of those moments where I wished I could cry. It was just that moving.
As I mentioned before, the story gives a meaning behind “build your life”. You have control of your life; your life does not control you.
I feel that a story is made through emotions, actions, and interactions. The emotions are what the person is thinking behind his actions, and those actions lead into interactions with other people, other objects, and themselves. Cal Armstead has used those components very well making the book have an uplifting feeling inside of you after seeing or witnessing something emotional and inspiring.
I clearly remember the feeling that I got after I finished reading the book. I was struggling to go to sleep as the thoughts I had about the book were swirling through my head. I was and am truly glad about joining the club and deciding to give the book a shot.
As Thoreau said in Walden, “However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace.” This quote is the meaning behind this story and for that reason, and the reasons before, I highly recommend anyone and everyone to read this book.
Missing Slippers
By: Sreya Palnati
I wake up to the sound of an awfully loud airplane. As I roll out of bed, I take a quick glance at the clock and realize that I am thirty minutes behind my schedule! I loudly groan as I make my way through the maze of bed sheets, comforters, and pillows. As soon as my feet touch the bare ground (at the precise location where I had placed my baby pink laced slippers the night before), a wave of coldness washes through me as if I were getting frostbite starting with my feet. “Slippers, where are my SLIPPERS?” I yell. I make sure to yell the “slippers” part louder so that my sister across the hall can hear. Little Jessica is seven and we pretty much hate each other. In fact, I can’t remember a time when we weren’t fighting. This is one of the pranks she likes to pull on me; she takes my slippers in the morning because she knows that I hate it when my feet get cold! Little kids! So immature! Jessica comes skipping down the hall like little red riding hood, skipping through the woods just in time to see her grandmother eaten by the wolf. This was the third time this week that she played this prank on me and I can’t believe that I forgot to check for my slippers again.
“Yes, my dear sister? What do you need?” she says in such a sweet, mocking tone, which kind of surprises me because I didn’t know someone so evil could talk that way.
“STOP TAKING MY SLIPPERS!!!” I scream at her.
“What slippers? You can’t blame me for everything Sophia.” she says with a mischievous smile and skips back out of the room. Again, so immature! I would’ve run after her, but at this point I really didn’t have the time. I walk into my bathroom and stop in my tracks. Tiny red handprints are scattered all over my bathroom floor and walls. As I trace the footprints to find the source, I open the curtains and gasp. I find my two year old baby brother sitting with his legs crossed and hands spread out wide. His hands are covered in red, just like the rest of his body. For a second, I thought it was blood and got really scared.
Then, he giggles and says, “Paint!” He recently learned that word and it seems like he’s using it everywhere he goes.
“Mom!” I shout.
A few seconds later, my mom appears saying, “What’s the problem?” She too, gasps when she sees the mess. Then, I tell her the story of how I found Tommy like this in the tub covered in red paint. She shakes her head and tells me to just take a bath in Jessica’s bathroom.
“What??? But her bathroom is super small and it’s way too bright and–”
“Honey, please it’s just one morning.” She seems tired and has black circles under her eyes.
“Fine!” I say and stomp my way over Jessica’s bathroom.
“What are you doing here? I told you I didn’t take your slippers. Just leave me alone!” she said.
“I’m not here about the slippers! Tommy made a mess in my bathroom and mom told me to use yours instead.”
“Ugh!” She says and scoots out of the way so I can open her bathroom door.
By the time I finish taking a bath in the cramped tub, I was late. I even missed the first few minutes of school. The whole day went by slowly with rigorous note-taking, tests, pop quizzes, and worksheets. During my fourth block, my teacher handed out the pop-quizzes we had taken last class. I guess my appalled face was apparent to my teacher because he said, “better luck next time Mrs. Markwelle!” I felt heat rush to my face as everyone in the class looked my way.
“I’m like the only one who got a bad grade on this quiz! I mean, I could tell it from everyone’s faces,” I told my friend.
“Don’t worry because I’m pretty sure that lots of people got worse grades than you,” she said.
“I’m not so sure,” I replied.
I get off the bus and walk down the path to my house. Then, I heard a rustling behind me and swiftly started walking backwards so that I could spot the source. I probably shouldn’t have done that because I didn’t see a rock and stumbled and fell on the ground. I scraped my knees where blood started gushing out. I walk home limping and knock on my doorbell. Jessica opens the door and I sigh in frustration. She looks at my bleeding knees and gasps.
“What happened?” She asks.
Then, the tears came out. I can’t help it. I’m devastated. This is the worst day ever! I actually answer her and tell her about my horrible day.
“Sophia,” She began, “It’s just a bad day. The only difference is that now, you have a chance to appreciate the good days even more! Oh yeah, I forgot something…” She quickly got up and jogged inside, leaving me sitting on the porch. A few seconds later, she came back with my much missed slippers in one hand.
“My slippers,” I exclaimed, “Gosh, I missed these so much, that I am actually happy to be holding slippers!” she chuckled and looked at her feet.
“Turn it over,” she said softly. I slowly turned it over and saw my name elegantly embroidered with a small note underneath it saying “to the best slipper in the world”.
“Wait…what? How did you do this?” I asked.
“Well, there was this girl in my school who offered to do it for me, which is why I took your slipper this morning.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Yeah, I did this because I wanted to make up for all the trouble I have caused you and I’m really sorry and—“
I stopped her in the middle of her sentence and gave her a huge hug. Her smile was ten miles wide. “I love you,” I said. This time, I really meant it.