"Photograph of the Girl" Reading Response

 The poem “Photograph of the Girl” by Sharon Olds shows how one teenage girl struggles through puberty and starvation. In the poem, there is a photo of a tired and defeated looking girl, who is caught in a drought with millions of others. The speaker of the poem made me realize that the poor value their needs far more than their wants. The things that we value are only luxuries to them.

                One example of this would be that the girl in the photograph is not wanting beauty as much as an average girl or guy. She has given up on her appearance to focus on her essentials for staying alive. In the quote, “she cannot be beautiful, but she is starving” proves that to the girl, food is far more important to her than beauty. She will not care what her peers will think or say. Her values are towards her needs.

                Another example would be when the girl in the photograph is described. She appears dehydrated, in the line, “in the drought of 1921, stunned, eyes closed, mouth open, raw hot wind blowing sand in her face”. This description is inserted to show us how dehydrated the girl is. Her body wants and needs water, therefore the girl wants and needs water. Her mouth is open because her body is expecting water, which she cannot provide. Her eyes are closed because she cannot take in any more heat from the sun. The hot wind is blowing sand in her face, causing it to burn. The girl at this point wants what she needs, which are water and a place to cool down.

                The girl in the photograph is also going through puberty. She needs to support her growth and get more nutrition. But she cannot feed herself. The speaker says that “each day she grows thinner, her arms longer, porous”. She needs to support her developing body. Otherwise, she’ll perish in the drought. And the girl doesn’t want to die, she wants to live. She needs to live.

At the end of the poem it is said that the girl will die along with millions of others like her. They are all crumbling under the hardships of the drought. But there are even more than these few million people. There are people all around the world facing hunger and dehydration. They are all putting their needs before their wants in order to survive. Readers of this poem should not overanalyze it, but they should be reading this be getting alerted about social issues that happen all across the world. They should see things from the girl’s perspective and realize how lucky they are to have what they have, because to the poor, they are only luxuries.

I Hate This, I Hate That

When the wifi is down then I am late
Late on twitter which means no online drama
Drama that I sometimes love or hate.

When there's pizza but it gets cold
Cold as a winter day, which it is
Is disgusting like green mold.

And speaking of winter when it's just freezing
The bitter weather and temperature
Dropping and dropping and dropping and dropping.

Ali's Pretty Little Lies Response

Alison DiLaurentis was the most prettiest and most popular girl in school. Everyone wanted to be her, even the older girls. All boys wanted to date her. But the thing was, Alison was a cruel girl. She was the queen bee and had dirt against everyone. If she was the slightest bit intimidated by anyone, she'd get revenge in the most twisted way. But there is a reason Alison is like this. She has a twin.

Alison and Courtney DiLaurentis fought over everything. Courtney was the more popular twin and her sister was jealous of her. Which caused Alison to force Courtney to impersonate her.The tormenting got so bad that Courtney attempted to choke her sister. Here, she crumbles under the pressure of her sister, causing her to go insane.Their parents had her sent to a mental institution, and pretended that they had only one daughter, Alison.

When Courtney comes home to visit, she switches place with Alison by dressing like her and stealing her ring. So Alison ends up getting sent back to the mental institution instead of Courtney, who takes on as Alison. She's the popular girl at school and is friends with everyone. At first, she's nice, but then to portray her sister she becomes a bit more meaner. But once she begins recieving messages from an anonymous stalker and getting threats, she begins to crumble under her lies. It causes her to personally nasty towards everyone, even her friends.

Courtney is actually the nice girl, but because of her twin sister, she becomes a mean and a hateful girl, trying to become Alison DiLaurentis.