I feel that I did a pretty good job on my Romeo and Juliet essay. I have definitely come a long ways from when we wrote our first big essay in the beginning of the year. I think that I am now good at writing meaningful and thoughtful essays. I would say that i do understand literary analysis and what it is all about. You have to understand the book from cover to cover, be able to pick up on little metaphors, and just be a good reader and essay writer. I do believe that I am able to do all of that now.

Although I think I am a pretty good essay writer, there are always areas that I can improve on. I tend to say "like" instead of "such as" a lot. I also tend to go back and forth between 2nd and 3rd person. Sometimes I say "you" and other times I say "one". I never know which one to use but I guess it is usually better to write in 3rd than it is to write in 2nd. Another thing that I do is I sometimes write in past tense. I always have to go back through my writing a bunch of times just to make sure I didn't forget and use past tense. Overall I think I have learned a lot. Romeo and Juliet essay did help me a lot.

I do tend to read more during the summer than I do during school. This summer, I am planning on reading at least two books; Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer, and Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer. The reason I would read Breaking Dawn is because I have already read the first three but I never got to the last one, so I think that this summer would be a very good time to finally read it. I want to read Artemis Fowl because I have already read the first one and it was really good so I want to read the next one. I have heard that it is just as good as the first. So overall I do have some reading planned for over the summer. I will probably end up reading more books but I do not know what they are yet.

Dreams

In my opinion, dreams do have some kind of relevance in real life. They have to come from somewhere, so maybe they do have something to do with the past or future. One dream that I have had that I can remember and means the most to me is when I was sailing out on the ocean with my dad and then all of a sudden there was a big storm and I fell over board. My dad could not hear me as he sailed away with no idea that I was not on board anymore. I was screaming and yelling at the top of my lungs but nobody could hear me! I didn't know what to do...I was so scared. Then, all of a sudden, I woke up right before I went under.

When I first thought about what my dream meant, I took it too literally. As I thought about it more, I realized it symbolized what I am truely scared of; being alone and helpless in a situation that I can't get out of, and ultimately, ending in death. In my opinion, one of the worst feelings someone can have is knowing that nobody can help them. All alone, scared and knowing that you are going to die. So from then on, I made a promise to myself that I would never let myself get into a situation where I was helpless and destined to not make it through. Ultimately, live with no regrets.

I think that my dream does relate the Romeo and Juliet. They both relate to fate and death. When Romeo has the dream that if he went to the party, death would come rather too quickly for him. But not like me, he chooses to ignore his dream, whereas I acted upon mine, but I think that I am closer to Romeo than I am to Mercutio.

Dreams do have a fairly large impact in the third act of the play. Romeo is slowly starting to realize that the dream he had earlier maybe is starting to come true. He has been exiled and now is thinking that he might as well be dead because he can't see Juliet anymore, which is slightly over dramatic. But overall, he was right and he should have acted upon it, just like I chose to do.