Speaking In Tongues

My first reactions on reading this story was that it was going to be about some church girl and how something that was impossible was going to happen to her. It was so unexpected when it said that her mother was a heroine addict and her church were very strict on the rules they had. If I was that girl, I would have run away a long time ago. I think her grandmother should have been a little lenient for her because she is just a child and she needs to have fun. Since the grandmother was not lenient she went off to go find her mother and ended up in a bad place that she couldn't get out of. Maybe the grandmother was teaching her a lesson, but that was a bad lesson for Tia. I didn't like the ending of the story. All of a sudden it just ended with Tia running away from Dezi. It gives you no clue if she made it back home or not. I really wish it would have told me if she did or not.

Letters From War

I found a lot of interesting letters from many different wars. The letter I got were from WWI, the Civil War, and the Mexico War. The one letter that I liked the most was the one from WWI. It was about Lloyd S. who is a young man going to war for his first time. He doesn't have much, but he is tough. He is tough because he sleeps on the ground and in a ten and most of the other guys whent to hotels or houses. He is ready for anything. They have a lot chores to do and Lloyd has done a lot of them.

What I found interesting about this letter was that he had time to write his letter. It was very in depth and meaningful. I thought that they wouldn't have a lot of time because of all of the work they had to do. An unusual thing was that there were a lot of guys in one tent. I think that they need more room.

Censorship

I think that censorship is a good thing to have in this world. In my FWJ I was asked if I have ever been censored and if I have ever been denied materials because of censorship. Personally I have never been censored before, but I have been denied materials because of censorship. Some examples are at school, they block many websites that they feel are not good for the learning of others. Another example is that my parents wouldn't let me watch movies that were rated PG-13 until I was thirteen and they wouldn't let me watch movies rated R until I was eighteen.

I think that censorship has a big influence on people. When there are eight year old kids watch PG-13 movies they take things from it that they don't need to know. Some examples are weapons and swear words. Sometimes movies can give kids nightmares and they might think it was real and they would be scared for the rest of their lives.

Initial Reactions and Insights of SH-V

My initial reactions on this story are that the old man is crazy and weird. All he did was sit around and get drunk. He never was with his wife. He kept talking about how he could never remember any war stories and when he was drunk he would call up old army friends and they never remember any good stories too. If I were those scouts, I would have left Billy and Weary a long time ago because they were always behind.

I found that there was a lot of repetition in this story. I think he repeats himself a lot because he is old and can't remember if he said something before. Some examples are after a death occurs he says, "so it goes." Another example is when Billy was with his war friends he always said, "You guys go on without me." I think he was saying that because he was always thinking of good times in his life and he didn't want to leave them. I also found humor in the first two chapters. An example is "The gun made a ripping sound like the opening of the zipper on the fly of God Almighty." It is funny because nobody else would compare something like that to God.