Atonement in Kite Runner

Atonement is amends or reparations for past wrong doings committed. I believe however that full atonement cannot happen unless you were to feel the same emotions as the person you affected before. That is something that is hard to achieve. Yet, by making mistakes we are able to learn and progress. No matter what you do, something has changed after that incident that will affect someone forever. You look at what happened with Hitler and after the Allied countries won the war, Germany had to pay reparations for the damages they caused. However, nothing can be done to bring those millions of people he killed back to life.

To me, I feel like Amir has many things to make up for. First off, I feel Amir needs to become more humble and less jealous of other people around him. Next, I it was completely wrong of him to read to Hassan but teaching him the wrong meaning of words was just flat out cruel. Then you have when Amir tries to frame Hassan for stealing money. Finally the most important is when he stood aside and allowed Assef to rape Hassan. To me, Amir was just a rich selfish brat that could not live up to his fathers expectations and could not find his niche in the world. I feel like he will never truly find atonement for his sins but it will, I feel become easier to live with, especially if Hassan were to forgive him.

Missing a goal

Ok, so just this past weekend I made a mistake during my soccer game. The score was 0-0 in about the 70th min. I got a pass in behind the defense which gave me a one on one with the goalie. I went far post with my shot but the goalie came up with the save. Then they were able to catch us off balance and go on a counter-attack which almost lead to a goal. The reason I chose this was because I have not scored a goal yet this season. However, I did make up for it because we scored a goal after I drew a corner kick and off the corner kick I volleyed the ball back into the middle where someone else on my team put it in.

The Last Lecture Book Preview

The author of The Last Lecture is Randy Pausch with the help of Jeffrey Zaslow. It is a story about an engineering professor from Carnegie Mellon who finds out that he has cancer and only so long to live. The book gives insight to is true beliefs and gives inspiration to people everyday. The last lecture he gave to his students was about living life to its fullest and making the most out of every moment you have. The book is broken down into six chapters each with interesting chapter titles. The story is a national bestseller and I am sure it will make me evaluate life and what I am making of it.

What's going on?

From the journal of Marc Tyler: The year 1969











It was the forth of July and I was heading back to the helicopter that was going to transport us back to base in Vietnam after a routine perimeter sweep, when all of a sudden, my party got ambushed by a pack of guerrilla fighters. They came at us from our right flank with the bank of a riverbed to the left of us. There was no place to take cover from the body piercing rounds being hailed down upon us. We got into formation and began to fire back at our assailants. Right away, we were down to three men of our five man convoy due to the surprise attack from the guerrilla fighters. Johnny was to my left and our team leader Scott was in front of me shouting orders to fall back. So I started moving down into the riverbed. As I turned around to make sure Johnny and Scott were doing the same, johnny dropped to his knees and it was over. I turned and looked at Scott, once again he yelled to me fall back. I was given the order and was not going to disobey him. When I got down the bank I here an explosion from above where Scott had been crouched and knew that I was the only soul left. I knew that down here I would be a sitting duck just waiting to be picked off from above. So I began high tailed it out of there. Bullets began to rain down all around me. Then I turned the corner and saw the helicopter. I was able to make it inside under the cover fire given by the soldiers in it. We were able to take to the air and get out of the jungle.

When Evil Prevails

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing."

I believe this quote in a lot of ways is true because if people stand by and let bad things go on around them, it is just as bad as the people who are performing the actions. I think it relates to Kiterunner through when the boy Assef discusses Hitler and his own philosophy for what Afghanistan should be like. The world allowed Hitler to parade around Europe and do what he wanted without anyone standing up to him. Well, Assef takes this and says how Afghanistan is the land of Pashtuns, and alludes to the fact that he feels the Hazaras should be abolished from the land.

Decisions

Many factors affect peoples decisions from day to day life to things that will happen far out into the future. Some of these factors include how you want to be viewed, whether or not you are willing to go against the crowd, or even making decisions based on your best interests. Decisions are constantly being made from the time we get up in the morning to the time we fall asleep every night. Should I eat breakfast, should I watch tv, should I do my homework, these decisions are made almost immediatly. But in some cases we have tougher decisions that might take you a lot more time to get a definitive answer. Should I go to the movies and have fun with my friends or stay home and spend some time with my parents whom I had not seen all week? Should I go to St. John's University of the University of Pitt? These sort of questions take more thought and you try to weigh the pros and cons to each. Some of these decisions will change your life and could take you in a totally different path then what you intended on taking. Nevertheless, these decisions make us who we are and allow us to be individuals.

Land of Afghans (Recipe)

1 piece of land about the size of Texas.
1 mountain range known as the Hindu Kush.
A dash of 33 and a half million people in the ratio 1.05/1 males to females.
6 cups of religion with the ratio of 80% Sunni Muslim and 20% Shia Muslim.
Add in a 3 decades of a recovering economy.
A spoon full of 23 billion in GDP.
40 liters of unemployment.
Sprinkle in 46 airports.
And add in some opium for flavor.
Let it soak in a crock pot overnight.

Spring Break

My spring break was fantastic. I honestly did not really do that much. I took in a lot of sleep, which was greatly needed. I played a lot of fifa on PS3, which I have not had time for in a while. I watched the entire Masters golf tournament, was a little disappointed how Tiger played but it can be expected for being out with a knee injury all last year and kind of jumping right back into the fire. Him and Phil put on a performance though in the forth round yesterday, which was great to see. Other than that, I helped my dad pick out a new car, an Acura RDX. It is a nice car, comfortable seats and a great ride. Easter was also very enjoyable, got to see relatives that I normally do not see very often, so it was good to catch up with them.