Journal 6 by Alisha

The biggest take away from A Long Way gone is how Beah never gave up hope throughout all the problems that he had to overcome. There were some points in the book where Beah had to make a decision that could change his life completely. One point would be when he had to become a  soldier. What would his life be today without that? Beah lost a lot in his childhood, he wrote " I knew I could never forget my past, but I want to stop talking about it so that I would be fully present in my new life"(Beah 202) Even though Ishmael doesn't want to remember his past it is still the reason he is who he is today. After reading The House On Mango Street I thought more in detail about never forgetting where you came from even if you are embarrassed. I can kind of relate to being embarrassed and wanting to get away and never look back. I have some family members that made the wrong choices in life and I am actually really embarrassed about but with time I have realized I needed to live with it. I definitely did not want to but you can't pick your family.

While watching the documentary what really stuck out to me is the little boy that played Hamlet. His teachers before Mr. Rafe didn't believe in him and was always putting him down. The other teachers would not give him any recognition and thought he couldn't accomplish anything. When Mr. Rafe gave him the part of Hamlet the other teachers questioned his decision. When watching the kids preform Shakespeare the young boy did great and proved to all the other teachers that he could be great he just needed someone to believe in him.