Angel Soberanes' Blog

    2020 has truly been a hellacious of a year. With many things happening this year such as the horrendous wildfires, the death of George Floyd, and COVID-19 being the star of the show, making the year a wild ride.  All these changes had an impact on our society both negatively and positively as we have had to time to not only work on ourselves but time to finally bring light on a lot of issues we face as a whole. Being that this year was so hectic it also impacted our education, throwing everyone of guard. How did this impact our education though?          To start off we all know this year has been like no other as classes were going to be completely different as school had to take place virtually. Being that courses were completely different, something that made this course distinct from the others was the way assignments were graded and Dr. Preston's understanding of students. This is the first class that I have ever had that assignments...

 In this chapter we see the Bishop talk about how bishops always have a group of people with them, and how he does not as he is isolated. Then we get to see the author talking about success and how people that are successful have won "lottery" in a way. As they have ways to get what they want as well as having people look up to them and respect them, uses bishops as example. The way of winning this lottery though is based on how you play.

Personally this is the most confusing chapter I have read so far but what I was able to understand was we go back a couple years and see the Bishop was a baron for an empire, he would attend private conferences and because of it would be interrogated by people. We see he hated luxury as it was considered bad unless it had to do with the church and we also get to see that he had two brothers. He was considered a humble, intelligent man by others and that made people like him a lot. 

 In this chapter we see a different side of the Bishop. We see him go back and forth on whether he wants to visit them man as we know the Bishop holds judgement which is something we haven't seem do at all. He finally visits the man after hearing he would be passing and once he arrives with the man we immediately see the Bishop hold a grudge. We see them start arguing once Louis XVI is mentioned as the Bishop believed he did not deserve to get killed while the other person disagreed and believed he should have died. We see a person who is religious and of power listen and argue with an everyday person. Towards the end of their argument, we see both of them open up their mind as they release they were both in the wrong and finally listen to the others view on the idea without arguing. The Bishop then asks for the man's blessing and starts praying over him and once he looked up, the man had passed.

 One thing I personally like about LES MIS is how the author has little by little revealed the Bishop's character. Three techniques Victor Hugo used to create the effects in the story are indirect characterization, foreshadowing, and figurative language. We see Hugo use indirect characterization to slowly reveal more about the Bishop character. When we started reading we really did not know anything about the Bishop but as we kept reading we kept picking up on his character through the authors indirect characterization, such things as him putting others before him and his kindness. The author also used some foreshadowing multiple times to give us an idea of what is going to happen next, and it's things like this that keep a reader hooked. For example we see the silver utensils and candlesticks brought up as well as him leaving his house unlocked although we do not know if someone if for sure going to rob them, we can infer and assume that this is a big possibility of  happenin...

 Reading is suppose to be fun , but sometimes reading for school is a challenge. Here are four ways we can have more fun reading and do it better at the same time. When choosing a book, it is important to choose a book that calls your name and you know you will find interesting while reading. This is important because you are more likely to finish the book as you are hooked and it feels more like something you choose, like a hobby, as opposed to not liking the book and it feeling more like something you are forced to do. Let's say you find a book you don't like, it is important to understand why and acknowledge it. This helps better your knowledge and improves your reading. The third thing to improve our reading skills is to change our point of view on reading. We were taught that reading is just a test on how good we know how to pronounce words but reading is more than that. If we look into it reading is how we analyze what the author is saying through decoding and the meanin...

 In this chapter we see the relationship between the Bishop and his sister, Madam Magloire, and we get to see they are extremely close. We see that his sister adores what her brother does and has immense respect for what he does as a bishop.

 In chapter 8 we find see a drunk man interact with the Bishop and basically gave him his thoughts on life. He thought one should be living life to the fullest and not worry about others  because he doesn't believe in good, evil, heaven, hell, and once you die you die. He goes on to say that its his wisdom that has thriving. This obviously got the Bishop extremely mad and after the drunk man finished ranting the Bishop started clapping, sarcastically. The Bishop then goes on to say materialism is what fuels the man and congratulates him for his bizarre thoughts.

 In this chapter we see the Bishop do something no one else has attempted and that was  traveling through the mountains where the bandits currently reside to get to the shepherds. He insisted to travel by himself as he did not want to put others in danger but was accompanied by a child. He reached the shepherds successfully, without encounters, and the Bishop was given a chest full of things that belonged to the church by the bandits. The Bishop did not know whether to return the things to the church or to use it for the people, in specific the people in the hospital. 

 In this chapter we get to see the structure of the house the Bishop currently resides in and we find out that it is a pretty big house.  The house also had a garden outside that was used to grow vegetables and the Bishop also likes spending his time tending and caring the plants.  The houses interior decoration made sense once   Madame Magloire discovered that the hospital used to be the ancient parliament house of the Bourgeois. Although the Bishop pretty much gave the needy everything he had, there was one thing he retained and that was a set of 6 silver knifes and forks, a soup ladle, and two silver candlesticks. Although the house was extremely big and held the Bishop, there was not a single lock on the house as he believes God is protecting his house and there wasn't a need for such thing. 

 In this chapter we dive in more into the Bishop's life and we see that he lives a pretty normal life. We also see part of his everyday routine. He first handles his business and after he is done with that he goes and helps the sick and needy. While visiting them he would give them all his money until he no longer had any. At the end of the day he would spend  his time writing and reading.

 In chapter 4 we see the Bishop get asked for help, as their is hundreds of people struggling. His solution was to educate the ignorant about the multiple structures of life, specifically the men and the people in power were the ones to blame. He later finds out about a man that was set to be executed because of counterfeit money. The Bishop spent all his time comforting this man until the day of execution, through out this time spent with him he was able to make this man feel uplifted. After the man died to the guillotine it completely shocked and disturbed the Bishop.

 1. A symbol is something that holds certain meaning that only certain people comprehend. While a sign is something that is easily comprehend and understood by everyone/everything. 2. The three elements of the symbolic relationship ("blue triangle") is the symbol, reference, and us . 3. A word is a symbol because although it is just a word, if you look into it words have deeper meanings than just being a bunch of letters being crunched together. 4. One natural sign you see in the world is a fire. 5. One symbol I have seen in the world are birds in specific the raven and hummingbird. For example some people see a raven as a bad omen. Some people also consider hummingbirds healers. We know this because ravens are considered mysterious birds and hummingbirds because of their "positive" way of living.

 In chapter 3 we see the bishop travel through multiple different terrain in order to visit multiple towns, which proved to be a difficult task. Once he arrives at Senez, he somewhat calls himself out for having similarities to Jesus when he traveled but confesses he did it out of necessity and not vanity. Being that he had to travel to 358 different towns he encountered many towns that possessed negative qualities such as greed. For each one of these towns he would point out a different town that had positive qualities to it and would use them as examples to help these towns and give them an idea on how they can improve. At the end of this chapter we get to see how the author is somewhat painting the Bishop to be a someone who's extremely good with words and images to the point where the Bishop himself believed he was persuasive. 

In chapter 2 we continue to learn more about Myriel and we find out that he is a kind person. He gave up his house so that the sick had space to be housed without being cramped into small rooms. He also spent 15,000 livres and only 1,000 of those livres went into his personal expenses everything else went in helping the people. Many townspeople though continued to bash him after he claimed the allowance he was owed. Myriel soon started making tons of money but would only take what he needed, bare necessities, and would use the rest to help others. In this chapter we find out that Myriel is a kind, generous man that puts others before him and only takes what he needs for himself.

So far in chapter 1, we know that Myriel is a mysterious man that the towns people do not really know anything about. We know this because once he gets into town theirs a lot of speculation about his origin. His wife died due to chest malady leaving him by himself and we know that this thought would sometimes come and punch him right in the stomach leaving him overwhelmed, although he never shows it. Myriel was appointed bishop by Napoleon. His sister Mademoiselle Baptistine was described as scrawny, old lady, we can assume she thought very negative about herself, and was described to get the beauty of goodness because of her age. By reading chapter 1, we can tell that the author describes Myriel as a mysterious man, dropping subtle hints about his life without giving us to much, making his character that much more interesting. 

 What Victor Hugo is trying to say in "Les Miserables" is that their is three main problems in this world. "T he degradation of man through pauperism," p eople degrading people because of their wealth/class status aka the poor. "T he corruption of woman through hunger," which I thinks means two things people being so quick to judge others and the problem of people starving to death. Finally "T he crippling of children through lack of light," I really do not know what he means by this but my idea is the idea that younger people are so used to seeing the bad in the world that to them it's a normal thing. As long as these three problems exist the world will be a living hell and honestly those three problems are still present to this day.

 No I am not entitled to my own opinion because when someone is entitled to their opinion its does not allow the other person to express themselves resulting in the conversation getting cut short. It is a form of ignorance as you are not willingly saying you are not open for a discussion that searches for the truth.

 1. 3 examples of symbols in our everyday life are ad banners, billboards, and newspapers. 2. Two possible meanings of the green light at the end of Daisy's dock is it symbolizing money because of its green color and one being  "green with envy." 3. Some ways people and animals are similar because they share basic life necessitates such as eating, sleep, and death. 4. One major way people were different from animals was us as people told stories, we were able to invent ideas that were not physically a thing. 5. Telling stories and inventing stories empower people to organize in large numbers because it simplifies and it makes it easier for people to identify someone that associates with a specific symbol no matter if they are part of that group

       When we imagine someone saying "I have the right to my opinion" what's the first thing to come to mind? We imagine someone that's had has been discussing and arguing for a minute and they have had enough. Once those words come out someone's mouth it completely puts a stop to the discussion, as their is no way to find the answers, and  it is completely selfish and ignorant because you willingly admitted that you are not up to the challenge of finding answers. Why is not using the "right" to your opinion important though? Arguing and giving up any "right" to your own opinion saves our lives, improves our country, and secures the future for the next generations because it opens up the door for truth and answers through a discussion where we all go into it open minded. The Black Live Matter movement, COVID-19, and global warming are all serious matters that should be an open discussion where we all search for truth and answers.     To start ...