Friday, June 11, 2010

The Two Pillars of College Admission

Recommend a book:

If I could recommend any single book to anyone, it would probably be The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. The book is absolutely brilliant. It’s essentially a self-help book wrapped in a fictional story. The book’s subtitle is “A fable about following your dreams.” It is currently one of the best selling books in history and has been translated into more than 50 languages. I am a huge fan of self help and personal development so, of course, The Alchemist was a book I read as soon as I heard of it. I have never been more inspired by a fictional story. Upon finishing the novel, I walked around with a sort of glow leftover from the great feeling the book gave me. The Alchemist is a book that should be read by everyone. Its wisdom is timeless.

Talk about myself:

Where to start? I’ve been alive for 17 years and have countless stories that describe me and my adventures in all their glory. However, I’ll keep it simple. I have a great deal of hobbies including dancing, web design, reading, writing and being all around awesome. I focus a lot of my time on self improvement and love reading self-help books, watching motivational speakers and taking the time to inspire others. One day I hope to be a life coach and motivational speaker myself. I’m a very confident person and have no doubt that I’ll be able to achieve my dreams, and you can too!

Friday, June 4, 2010

Shakespeare - LOLteracy Legend

I've been a longtime Shakespeare fan and have read through many of his works. I tend to enjoy his plays more than his poetry, but he'll always be one of the masters of the sonnet.

My favorite works by Billy Shakez are Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear and of course Romeo and Juliet. The first three are, in my opinion, the best of the Shakesperean tragedies. They are all an excellent display of human flaws such as betreyal, corruption, greed, revenge and, of course, the inevitable tragic end of the path that all of these flaws or desires lead to. While I enjoy Romeo and Juliet, I don't care for the characters of either Romeo or Juliet. My favorite character in all of Shakespeare is Mercutio and his presence in the play makes it worth reading/watching. His death is quite possibly one of the most unfortunate in all of Shakespere's works - purely because his death wasn't his fault at all.

One of the amazing things about Shakespeares plays is that they are so timeless. My favorite film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet is the modern Romeo + Juliet set in a futuristic society. Mercutio's portrayal is absolutely brilliant and I don't think there's a better (or more outrageous) way for the character to be portrayed.

While Shakespeare's comedies are surely fun and interesting, I don't think they're anywhere near as good as the tragedies.

Although it's likely that Shakespeare didn't even write the works attributed to him, whoever did is a genius and master of the English language. In fact, if it weren't for Shakespeare - English as the current language we know would most likely not even exist.

All in all, Shakespeare is a master of language and storytelling. He will always be one of my favorites.