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Hi everyone!!! Here is my review on Game of Thrones, I hope you enjoy it and you all should totally watch it!!!

Who will end on the Iron Throne? The typical cliché saying of “this is more than a show” has never been more accurate. Karli, my best friend, introduced me to Game of Thrones and for months whenever she would talk about it I’d roll my eyes and tell her how weird she was for being so emotionally indebted to a show. Until I watched the first episode. I was hooked. The drama that was so deep rooted and in-depth that it had me, along with 23.3 million other people, entranced with the well-thought-out show.

           The show may have a simple concept of different families battling for the throne of Westeros—a continent which consists of seven different kingdoms—but it turns into so much more. Pride, love, family, desire and power are a few of the main themes that drive each character to do the things they do. Each different house has different goals and many different motives to do the things they do; with that being said, because there are so many different families and characters there are no main characters in Game of Thrones. There are a total of 20 different houses in the show, but the show is centered around 9 of them: House Stark, Lanister, Targaryan, Baratheon, Tyrell, Tully, Martell, Greyjoy and Arryn. While some may align together, others despise one another for various different reasons. Each of the houses has different things they’re known for and values they base their lives on, for example “a Lanister always pays his debts” is what the Lanister’s—who currently have hold of the Iron throne—base their lives on. As the show progresses you inevitably form a deep love for certain characters and different houses despite the undeniable likelihood of them being killed.

           There is a large wall that surrounds the entire continent that protects them all from what lies north of it, which is everyone in Westeros’ enemy: The army of the dead. The army of the dead is also known as The white walkers; they are magical creatures who can withstand the cold and who can only be destroyed with a weapon called “dragons glass” or by being burned alive—well burned dead. This great enemy is thought of as nothing but a legend to those south of the wall but the people north have witnessed them and how destructive they are. The northerners are making it their goal to prove to them that the army of the dead is coming with winter to take over the entire continent. A commonly used phrase in Game of Thrones is “winter is coming” and winter in Westeros doesn’t just mean the cold; it means death by starvation and lack of proper shelter or clothing for even the richest of families. Winter doesn’t come every year, sometimes there is no winter for hundreds of years, but winter is coming in Westeros, and that means so are the white walkers. Each person the white walkers kill becomes another person in their army coming to destroy the entire continent. The white walkers are so large and nearly indestructible because of how rare dragons glass is. The severity of these creatures has halted the wars between houses and has banded them together to help the people of Westeros to survive the winter.

       Although the tv series is based on the books, the producers altered different aspects of the story and with my HBO subscription there is a sidebar that talked about the different changes made. Most of the changes add clarity for the viewers because so many minute details are already portrayed that some of the things from the books were redundant.  This show is abstract and does things typical tv shows don’t go about doing, the attention to detail and different aspects of the show make it so well liked and extremely unique. Game of Thrones has various settings and places such as Iceland, Spain, the United States and so many more adding different places contribute to making the show seem to truly be an entire continent. The mythical background of the shows create the need for astonished graphics to be used, 3 dragons are created digitally and are so well created they look real. The amount of war and battles fought also create a need for detailed makeup and crafting of decapitated heads (gory I know) as well as makeup for stab or burn details but how minute each and every detail of the show is makes it so much more important and interesting. The importance of perfection to the producers is reflected in one of the battles called “battle of the bastards” which took a total of 40 days to shoot. Many different parts of Game of Thrones reflect on history and portray important events, such Winter in the show is compared to the 100 days war, in the sense of the feeling of it never coming to an end. While all of these things are amazing, the craziest thing of the entire show, in my opinion, is how many different languages are spoken by the characters. There are many different forms of the language Valyrian in the show and a language created specifically for the show called Dothraki. I wish I could capture all of the things that make Game of Thrones so unique but this paper would be as long as the show itself.

    Although I love my dad, we are two very different people in every aspect. Game of Thrones is one of the few things we have started to bond over, whenever either of us see new information or theories on the show we are always quick to talk about it together. We would sit and watch episodes together and talk about all of the possible outcomes and our love for certain characters and hate for others. It sounds extremely cheesy but I’m extremely thankful something as simple as a show brought my dad and I together.

           Game of Thrones is such a unique show that has nothing that compares to the way they were able to create a drama that ties in history as well as gore all into one and everything works in perfect unison. The amount of story lines in the show can be overwhelming to some but the way they tie everything back to one another in the end make the details worth paying attention to. This show has changed my view on many different life experiences and brought me so many new conversation topics whether that be with family, friends or even strangers.  This show is more than a show, it’s a way of thinking. The final season on April 14th couldn’t come soon enough, where we will learn who truly deserves the iron throne.

Hello to whoever is currently reading this 🙂 … this is the first poem I’ve ever wrote and I’m very proud of it so I hope you enjoy! I was inspired to write it because when this writers memo was assigned and we worked on it in class, this was the only topic I had on my mind; this poem is inspired by the loss of 3 of my grandparents all in only this year. I wanted to write this poem with a tone that reflected my true feelings which was deep sorrow but I wanted to make it known that I would be okay and that I’m thankful I had the chance to spend as much of my life as I did with them.

“We gather to remember”

The tears. The black dresses and suits. The flowers. The abundance of whispering voices.

“I hate that I only see you here”.

The smell of old perfume and wallpaper from the 1970’s swallow us.

The flowers surround them As if they were a seed blooming in a new garden.

 

They say these things come in threes:

Grandpa Ehrhart,

in February:

I know you’re eating pizzelles and drinking a Manhattan.

Grandma Ehrhart,

in August:

I know you’re drinking a sweet tea admiring a garden.

Grandma Wilson,

in November:

I know you’re happy to be back with your 2 sons in peace.

Hopefully I’ll catch a chance to breathe before the next.

 

I want to see the beauty of a life long lived in the beautiful flowers,

But all I can see is black roses.

Black roses all around.

But even black roses

Bloom.

 

They have met  their maker,

And they will bloom again.

I will bloom again,

Even without them here, I will bloom.

I will find a way to remember them without pain.

I will find the color in the flower arrangements again.

Hello to the person on the other side of the screen! 🙂 For this writers workshop I chose to write my college admissions essay. The prompt I decided to use from the common app was “The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback or failure how did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?” I felt this prompt allowed me to express true emotions, hope you enjoy!

The pink Adidas bag. The bag that seemed to hold my life that was shattered into a million pieces. The day that changed who I was may have been 6 years ago but I could recall even the most insignificant details as if it was yesterday. Being only a 6th grade girl, I thought I had my whole life figured out; however, that little sixth grade girl didn’t know the half of who she’d become because of what she was about to experience.

As my mother—the woman who gave birth to me, the woman who was supposed to love me unconditionally—kicked me out of the house, I felt as if my world was exploding. Being served custody papers by your child’s father is a justified reason to throw your 12 year old daughter out, right? Maybe we should try and give her the benefit out the doubt here. She sadly wouldn’t be getting child support money she could use on drugs or alcohol or her new boyfriend of the week, poor woman. As I watched her throw my clothes into this bag with tears in my eyes, and hearing her tell me to get out, I felt nothing but complete and utter defeat. I was a lost little girl, as I stood  on the porch of my temporary home. Angie—my mom’s friend—allowed us to stay with her for the time being. My mother always relied on government support to keep a home because she doesn’t know how to work for the needs of herself—let alone a family—so my childhood consisted of constantly moving place to place. I called my step-mom—who since I was four stepped up to be the mom I didn’t truly have—and I waited there for what felt like an eternity.

When my dad got home, he came upstairs to my room where the bag of my clothes lied in the corner, he sat down and he told me he loved me and how sorry he was but that wasn’t all; He said to me, “Sis, you can let this bring you down or you can give this every reason to push yourself to greatness.” Now as I write this essay as a senior in high school, from that day forward, I didn’t look at my experience as an excuse but even more of a reason to succeed in everything I do, no matter how big or small.

Each day as a little girl and still to this very day, before my school day would begin my dad told me “work hard and be a leader”. I can confidently say that that’s what I did. I worked hard throughout school for my 4.37 GPA. I worked hard to be in the top 30 of my class. I lead as a goalkeeper on the soccer field for 10 years of my life. I lead my class by being on class council all four years of high school, vice president for two of those. I work hard to be involved in my school by participating in clubs and making a difference. I lead as a soccer coach to the youth to give back to the community that helped me. I work hard, I am a leader.

Each day of my life I will wake up and move forward, not let the experiences I went through as a kid influence who I am or what I’m going to be. The pink Adidas bag didn’t hold my life in broken pieces; it held an experience I could’ve let destroy my life, but instead each day I pick up the bag and move forward. The pink Adidas bag doesn’t define me: working hard and being a leader does.

Living in todays world, there are various different opportunities and experiences everyone has the opportunity of experiencing if they have a desire to and work hard to do it. With all of these experiences and opportunities I feel like everyone desires a similar thing in life—me included—and that is happiness. The question “What is it that you want from “this life”?” (fragment from Raymond Carver’s “Late Fragment”), really got me thinking about my life in the past, and what I want for my future. For the past 17 years I have gone through certain experiences that nobody should ever have to go through in their whole lives; I wish I could say that I let these experiences strictly let me grow but there have been many cases where I let my past as a kid determine my happiness. What I want from “this life” so to speak, is to be happy, a pure happiness. When I say I want to be happy I by no means want life to be smooth sailing, but I want to find happiness out of certain situations I go through— whether they are good or bad. I want to be able to find joy in everything I do and my senior year I am going to try my best to work on doing that.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton