Thursday, March 24, 2011

Hamlet Video Critique #1

Kevin's Hamlet Video Critique

Sunday, November 21, 2010

The Stranger part 1

Kevin Joyce
11/19/2010
English 12 CP
Ryan Gallagher
 I the passage when Marie asked Meursault if he loved her and he responded that it didn’t mean anything to him and that he didn’t think so, the author, Albert Camus suggest that in life , lifeless humans can not love because they have no other emotion and all emotions are connected to love. The overall view on this, is that Meursault has no emotion and reacts to Marie as for example, Marie asked Meursault if he wanted pasta and he said no I’m ok but thanks. So what Camus is trying to say is that Meursault only thinks for himself and his needs.
 When the paragraph begins, Camus tells the reader that Marie stays the night and is planning on having lunch with Meursault. Shortly after that they heard yelling at his dog. Meusault seems human around Marie up until “a minute later she asked me if I loved her”, after this when he responded with “ I told her that it didn’t mean anything but that I didn’t think so”. This makes him into a emotionless human all over again. Eventually they heard noises coming from Raymonds room.
 In the next paragraph Meursault and Marie overhear loud female shrills coming from Raymonds apartment. It turns out that Raymond was beating a woman in there , so Marie went to find a cop. It turned out that he was really beating her ,endangering he life. This is important because it shows that Raymond has a lot of anger problems, which is an emotion, meanwhile Meusault shows no emotion.

Friday, November 5, 2010

Independent Reading Essay

Kevin Joyce
4 October, 2010
Ryan Gallagher
Senior CP

In Arthur Golden’s novel “Memoirs of a Geisha” the character Sayuri’s passion of her love for the Chairman conflicts directly with Nobu’s passion for loving her, ultimately resulting in Sayuri becoming the Chairman’s mistress revealing that he was in love with her even though he caught her having sex with the Minister, hoping that it would be Nobu walking in on them.

In the beginning of Arthur Golden’s novel “Memoirs of a Geisha”, Chiyo, soon to be Sayuri, was a young girl who grew in a fishing village. “He seemed so fascinating to me, even the fish smell on his hands was a kind of perfume. If I had never known him, I’m sure I would not have become a geisha.” This quote ties in with the main idea, because if Chiyo never met Mr. Tanaka, then her future would have been totally different because Sayuri would have never existed and she would have never met the Chairman.

Toward the end of the novel, Sayuri tried to get Nobu to stop loving her once and for all, and ended up failing but because of this she became the Chairman’s mistress. “ I can scarcely remember anything after that door opened. For I think the blood may have drained out of me. I went so old and numb. I knew the minister climbed off me, or perhaps I pushed him off. I do remember weeping and asking is he’d seen the same thing I had, whether it really had been the Chairman standing there in the doorway.” This quote ties into the main idea completely. This was the climax of the novel because it was Sayuri’s final plan to get rid of Nobu and to be with the Chairman, only half of this came out right, because Sayuri becomes the Chairman’s mistress.

On the very last page of the novel, Arthur Golden wrote a quote that blends in perfectly with the entire novel. “ Whether our struggles and triumphs, however we may suffer them, all too soon they bleed into a wash, just like watery ink on paper.” The reason why this quote ties into the book is because, every conflict that Sayuri came across, she overcame it and lived through her new life as if it never happened. She changed her life style, found the man of her dreams, she became a new person.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

"The Plum Plum Pickers" Essay

Kevin Joyce
Ryan Gallagher
Senior CP
19 Oct. 2010

                                                    "The Plum Plum Pickers"

In the story "The Plum Plum Pickers" the author Raymond Barrio suggests that even though you are surrounded by people, you can still feel alone on the inside. An example of this would be when Manuel is feeling alone and trapped in the beginning of the story, when he describes the trees as jail bars, or the gates of Hell. He also keeps referring to himself as brute or an animal.

Barrio uses repetition to describe Manuel through the beginning of the story. One way that he uses it, is when he uses one word sentences like “Animal”, “Brute”, “Beast”, and “Predator”, the main reason why Barrio chose these words is because Manuel works and is treated like an animal. Since there are trees surrounding him, Manuel can compare himself as a caged animal. Also  Barrio uses repetition again, because he uses the word “brute” a least five times through out the story.

Barrio also uses comparison when describing Manuel, and his surroundings. He describes the apricot trees as “the blackest bars on the jails of Hell”. Barrio is comparing Manuel as an animal, and being trapped and alone, but yet he was surrounded by other pickers. He then describes Manuel at the end of the first paragraph using a one word sentence, as “Predator”.

The main idea of the story is that even though you are surrounded by people, you can still feel alone on the inside. This goes with the story because Manuel feels alone because, he feels like he is in Hell. He feels this way because his surroundings resemble Hell and it is really hot, and there are bad working conditions, so in general it is a bad working environment.

College Essay


Kevin Joyce
Ryan Gallagher
Senior CP
19 Oct, 2010
                                                               College Essay
 My name is Kevin Joyce and my number one passion in life is music. It all started when I was five years old, now being the middle child of three boys, Joe my older brother and Chris my younger brother, I didn’t receive much attention as I usually did because my parents mostly paid attention to Joe because of his sports activities and Chris because he was the youngest, not to mention that my parents fought almost every night, not to mention that me and my mom share the same birthday. The only person who really paid attention was my grandfather who bought me my first CD player  and gave me some of his CDs  such as THE ROLLING STONES and Bruce Springsteen .  Ever since that day I was always listening to music, until a few years later when my grandparents split up and I never saw my grandfather again. Soon after that it was Christmas and  along with all my toys that I got my parents bought me a few more CDs, I was nine this Christmas. Months later my parents started fighting a lot more then they used to, along with my brothers I was getting tired of all of the yelling and I turned to my CD player to block it all out, and I entered my own little reality and by the time I was 10 I had a growing CD collection. Then I noticed why my parents were fighting, my mom was a alcoholic. Now instead of my mom taking care of me, I was taking care of her, because my father worked until 7:00. Then he would come home and that was my time to get out of the room while they fought for the rest of the night.  Soon after that it was my first communion and at the party my mom was drunk and the life of the party, and in all jealousy that she took my special day from me I looked over to the stage and saw a karaoke machine and so I picked up the microphone and started singing a song, I grabbed everyone’s  attention even my drunk mother, the only person who didn’t really care was my dad. Since that day I loved performing and finally noticed my love for singing. Then my godmother wanted me, a 11 year old, to sing at her wedding and I left everyone in tears. Then my dad noticed that I really loved singing and I guess he didn’t appreciate it and so he made me try out for sports to keep me busy. I did baseball, football, and soccer, until one day when I told him I didn’t want to play sports anymore. But the reason that he did this is so I didn’t have to see my mom wasting her life away. I was 12 when my mom was put in her first half way home because she tried overdosing herself, and having DSS become part of my life. Then  a few weeks would go by and mom would come home, just to know that in a week she would be put in to another halfway home. In total my mom must have been put into 5 half way homes until I was 14 and my dad divorced her. But its not like me and my brother noticed anyways because she wasn’t home when they where together in the first place, and if she was, she was drunk and none of us wanted any part of that anymore. Then I turned 15 and it was my freshmen year of high school, where I didn’t know that my love for singing and music would grow so quickly. I was enrolled into the Mixed Chorus, which is made up of mostly freshmen. Since I was starting a new life, my dad brought it to himself that he should do the same, and so my dad started seeing someone and he hid it from us until one day he told us as we ate dinner and brought us to her house one day later, her  name was Kim and when I met her I felt like I already knew her, as if she was the mother I never had. The year went on all of us as a family including Kim and her kids, Erin who was about  Joes age and Cj who was a little younger the Chris. Then it was time for the MHS winter concert and I was so happy to see my dad there supporting me finally. As the year was coming to an end, Mr. Cole my choral director, and a huge role model for me, wanted to promote me to Malden High School’s Concert Choir, which is made of sophomores, juniors, and seniors, for my sophomore year. I was so happy to be promoted because only the people who disserved to be in concert choir where in it. Now that I was a sophomore and 16 years old, I loved chorus even more because I was in concert choir. That year went on and I got to say goodbye to all my graduating concert choir friends. Just like the year before Mr. Cole confronted me and wanted to promote me again, this time to Madrigals, also known as chamber singers, and I said yes, but in order to be in madrigals you need to be in concert choir. Along with being the Madrigals I was also MHS’s Choral Art Society’s treasure. Then it was senior year and I am now 18. While taking four music classes, Concert Choir, Madrigals, Music Theory, and I schooled to career for Mixed Chorus, where all of this started. Not only that but I also became MHS’s Choral Art Society’s president. After looking back at my life, I finally noticed my self as a performer and knew that performing is what I wanted to spend the rest of my life doing .