Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone_Book Review

The Harry Potter series composes 7 books in total. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and so on. All these books deal about a boy named Harry Potter and his resistance against an evil wizard, Voldemort. Today, I am going to talk about the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

To give a brief summary of this book, it is about Harry saving the sorcerer's stone. Let me go into detail. Harry, ever since he was a child, was brought up by his aunt and uncle because his parents had died in a car crash. Then, on his eleventh birthday, he was told by Rubeus Hagrid, a giant who lives in the grounds of Hogwarts, a school for wizards and witches, that his parents had not died by a car crash but was killed by an evil wizard named Voldemort. Later after purchasing all the needed things, Harry arrives at Hogwarts magical school. He becomes best friends with Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley. A time pass, the witches and wizards of Hogwarts learn more and more about magic. One day, they find out that there is a sorcerer's stone hidden in the castle and that someone is about to steal it. With great friendship, confidence, and bravery, Harry and his friends successfully manages to save it.

This book is one of my favourite books. When people first read this book, they might think that this is just a simple interesting fantasy story that is just about some weird magic boy and that there is nothing to learn. However, there is. Reading this book, readers can learn about the meaning of true love, friendship, and loyalty. From the sacrifice Harry's mother had made for her son, Ron's loyalty to his friends in the chess set, and during all the process of finding out what the sorcerer's stone is, many lessons can be learned.

The only thing I would want to criticize in this book and through all of the series, is that J. K. Rowling never talks about the good things about one of the houses in Hogwarts, Slytherin. Every time this house is mentioned, the people in it are portrayed as evil, wicked people, who are all in the side of Voldemort. There must have been an exception and I believe that the books would not have been so much prejudiced towards Griffindor if this part was dealed better.

I personally enjoyed this book, especially the part when Harry first goes to school and encounters Severus Snape, the professor for the subject of potions. I really do recommend this book to everybody no matter their age, since it is a book that can improve a person's creativity.

Before starting my blog, I would like to give some brief introduction.
First of all, I have a pet hedgehog. His name is Moony and he is 3 years old. I got him for my birthday present. Many people might think that hedgehogs are a weird pet type to raise. But once you have you can't deny the fact that they are so cute, gentle, and tame.
My favorite book is Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I love all the books in Harry Potter but I like the second one best because it consists a giant snake and a giant spider which I both like. I have read each Harry Potter book 13 times and I can't stop reading it more.
I love watching movies. I watch at least one of them a week. I usually watch old movies from the 20th century. My favorites are. "The Lord of the Rings", "The Patriot", "I am Sam", "You've Got Mail", "Face-off" and many more.
My greatest fear is heights. Because of this fear, I can't ride Roller Coasters, Vikings, and any kind of amusement park equipmetns. I once rode a Viking and threw up. I get dizzy all the time. On the bus, the subway, and even in elevators.

Whitney in GLPS

Once there lived a weird, witty, wicked girl named Whitney. She loved sports. She had this mean characteristic to always do the opposite as told. She had fox-like sharp and cunning eyes. Her parents, worried about her mean style, sent her to GLPS Leadership Camp to fix it. When Whitney grumpily went to the camp, the first thing she heard there was the announcement that no outside food are allowed, including snacks. Whitney, her usual disobeying style suddenly alive, called to her parents and asked them to send snacks for her. Her parents, not knowing anything about GLPS's rules, sent a mountain-like amount of snacks. Whitney made a decision. She hid all the snacks in her room; beneath the matress, between the books, inside the backpacks, and many other places. One day, while she was peacefully listening to a famous rapper's music chewing potato chips, one of the teachers came bursting into her room and said, "Ha! Here's an innocent person!". Whitney got a red card and all her hidden snacks were taken away. After the incident, Whitney's personality was improved and she returned back home as a wise, wonderful, but still weird girl. She was free from the wickedness.

An Apology

Dear Lieju,

I am so sorry if I had offended you by teasing you about your height. It's all my fault. I really want you to forgive me of my actions when I teased you in front of Class 21. I regret of treating you as if though you were an elementary school student and insulting you.

I understand your feelings of humiliation and I hope you will get better. It must have been hard to overcome that feeling.

From now on, I will never tease anybody about their heights and any part about their body weaknesses because just like skin colour, heights are uncontrollable.

I'll try to fix this as you have asked, by explaining to Class 21 of what had happened. To recover our friendship again, I'll try everything that can repair this problem. I hope you are okay with my effort. Again, I do wish that you will feel better after reading this apology and I hope we become good friends again.

I look forward to your response.

Sincerely,
Mr. Dean

Compliment

I think one of my best friends, Lidia, deserves a compliment for her magnificent drawings. We first became friends when we were both six-years-old and the main reason I would want to give a compliment to her is because she is such a wonderful painter. Her parents are both painters from  the Czech Republic and she got her parent's genes directly. She would draw portraits of me playing in the playground and it was like a photograph. Lidia was able to draw moving objects very quickly and accurately from that young age and she always got compliments by surrounding adults. She also used to teach me how to draw good paintings just like a gentle teacher. I believe that she will be a great painter in the future and give this compliment.

I want to give a compliment to my friend, ji-hyang. She is my truest friend and whenever I told her a secret, she would never tell it to anybody, even her parents. She always understood my feelings and would comfort me and she always seemed what I wanted or needed. In my whole entire life, she is the only person in the world that I tell all of my secrets and therefore, I give her a compliment about her great understanding skills.

Complaint

In 2011, there has been a major problem in my classroom. It was at its peak when it was September. The start of the problem took place on a warm Spring day. A girl gave chocolates to only the friends she liked and the rest did not get any. From then on, the classmates would give their sweets to some but to others, they pretended as if thought they didn't exist. As time past, two groups appeared in the classroom and they were always divided. They never played together and they often told bad words about each other. Some lucky few were out of this tension-full issue and they were neutral. I, one of the neutral people, think that this problem should soon be solved before all of us go to the second grade.

The problem of this issue is that the whole year can end only with bad memories. When my classmates go to the second year, they would all think, this year was horrible. I am so happy to get out of it. and they would hate each other forever. I believe that a year needs to end with good memories and no troubles. The second problem is some students become outcasts. If you are not involved in non of the team A, team B, or the neutral team, you get regarded as losers and this is a major problem too. There are about 5 of those outcasts in our class and they always get teased by all of the groups.

I think the best solution of this problem is someone telling to the teacher. Not in a tattletaling way but to ask the teacher for group activities that the whole class can participate and show partnership. If the hatred of the two groups are so deep that even from a teacher's help, it would not be settled, I think the neautral group has to interfere to make the two teams get friendlier since this group is friends to everyone.

I dearly hope that this problem gets solved quickly. Though I may be in the neutral group where everything is settled and calm, I hat seeing the distrust and fighting of friends and watching that is stressful enough. If this problem does not get settled, I would try to settle this problem myslef, by telling on the teacher that there has been fights going on.

I look forward to your response.

Creativity in Classroom

Today I will write about Mr. Dean's lecture on what creativity is, how to improve it, and what kind of things downgrade it.

First of all, he talked about what creativity is and what is not. He talked about how creativity is not reproduction but production. He gave several examples. If your are simply copying and drawing exactly the same as the Mona Lisa, though it may be perfectly the same, it is not creativity but just copying. Also when you are making a food by following the directions of a recipe book, it is not creativity. When you paint a new painting, when you are making your own special food, that is called creativity.

In addition, creativity is a fun activity but it is not easy because creativity needs amounts of thinking and wondering. Lazy people will not be able to produce creative work. Mr. Dean also talked about how creativity is researchable. He said that creativity is not magic. It can be made by effort and people who are creative are not just born like that. This means that everybody can increase their quality and quantity of creativity if they make a little bit of effort.

There is a major feature of creativity and it is that the people who did it cannot recognise it. Mr. Dean talked about a rope experiment that was held before. In this experiment, two ropes hanging on the ceiling were far apart from each other and the people were to hold both of them. Some succeeded but some didn't. The researchers then came into the rooms where there were people who couldn't finish the task and intentionally nudged one of the ropes a little and went. Then the people found the way to catch both ropes; to make them swing and grab it. These people thought that they by themselves had thought of this idea but the researchers knew that they had helped them. This experiment shows how the people who actually perform creativity cannot realise that there was help given.

Next, Mr. Dean talked about things that damage a person's creativity. Many think that drugs and alcohol can help the increase of creativity. This is not true. It will only decrease the amount. Also, many people offer threats of prize such as money for performing creativity. This is an unwise thought. Those kind of ways will make the person observe about the problem so much that it will only leave stress. The thoughts that you need to be good at art to be creative is also untrue. There are many people who are not that good at art who are very creative. Too much distractions can also lead to the damage and so does compliments.

However, there are also many things that could improve a person's creativity. First, a limited amount of rules can motivate creativity. For example, imagine that you are given  homework to write an essay and the teacher does not give you any kind of topic. You will wonder of what you want to write about and that would discourage creativity. If the teacher gives a specific topic, you will be able to express your creative thoughts and develop it in a limited area and this can be more effective. Also, compliments regarding the process of achieving something can increase creativity such as, "You have done well so far, so keep up your good work!".

Sometimes, "Controlled Distraction" can be effective. If you are concentrating too much, you get frustrated and can't continue your work. If you are distracted too much, you won't be able to focus on what you are supposed to do. The best way is controlled distraciton which is very positive for your creativity. For example, if you are writing about King Arthur, and you don't know anything to write about it, just open a random dictionary page and look at the word you first see. If it says, "totem", you can think about what Kin Arthur's totem or heraldry was.

In conclusion, I have summarized the lecture Mr. Dean gave about Creativity. About creativity's definition, things that encourage it, and things that discourage it.